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ALEXANDER CAMPBELL 
■if CHRISTIAN LIBERTY 



A Centennial Volume On His Controlling 
Ideas — Enforced By His Own Words. 



By JAMES EGBERT. A.B., D.B. 



1800-1903- 



Truth has nothing to feai from inve^igation. It dreads not 
the light of science, nor shuns the scrutiny of the mo^ pry- 
ing inquiry. It challenges the fullest, the able^, and the 
boldest examination. — Alexander Campbell. 



#®# 



ST. LOUIS: 

CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1909. 



■ ^^ Esc 



Neither Christian faith nor Christian character can be inherited, 
as the goods and chattels of this world. There is no royal or 
ancestral path to faith, piety, or humanity. Whatever truly 
elevates, adorns, or dignifies a human being, must be, more or 
less, the fruit of his own efforts. — Alexander Campbell. 



248733 



Copyright, 1909, 

Christian Publishing Company, 

St. IfOuis, Mo. 



To Ths Young Men of America with open minds eager for 

truth: 
To American Manhood which Alexander Campbell held in such 

high esteem: 
In his own spirit and word, **Not that we have lordship over 

your faith, but are helpers of your joy." — 

IS THIS BOOK DEDICATED: 

That you may come in touch with and appreciate his great 
personality : 

That you may catch his spirit: 

That you may express yourself in your chosen task to your 
generation as faithfully as he did to his; 

That you may get a vision of the Christ as impressive and be 
as courageous in lifting your age up to it as he. 






PRKFACE. 

The world ever has its revivals. The Renaissance which over- 
spread Europe in the fifteenth Century was a shaking up of the 
thought- world. Thoughts hidden for ages were resuscitated aud 
made to do service among men. The Reformation which followed 
in its wake belonged properly to the moral realm and directed its 
blows to conscience. 

Each age is characterized in an especial way by some revival 
in literature, in painting, in music, in morals, or in religion. The 
revival of the present day through which we are passing, is the 
Revival of Personality. Psychology has come. Man is under- 
stood as never before. It is the age of humanity. The whole 
man and the whole of men is the recognition. "All the world of 
the beautiful and of art is but a single rose thrown over the 
garden wall, as but a little hint of the infinite riches" of some 
personal life. So President King is able to say:* 

"All values finally go back to the riches of some personal life. 
We can not be too often reminded that the best the world has 
ever shown us in literature, or music, or art, is but a partial reve- 
lation of the inner riches of some personal life. So Kaftan is in 
the habit of saying in his lectures at the University of Berlin, 
that the greatest problem of life is the problem of appreciative 
understanding of the great personalities of history." 

This book is an attempt in this direction. It seeks to know 
and to feel the force and significance of the controlling ideas of 
Alexander Campbell as they issue forth in Christian I^iberty. 
On the part of the author it is a soul experience. For the past 
several years he has been sitting in the oresenee of this great 
personality with a longing to know him and to feel the touch of 
his soul in friendship. He brings only what he said to him with 

* Personal and Ideals Elements in Education, p. 78. 

—5— 



Preface. 

the hope that you, too, may find such personal fellowship. 

Mr. Campbell was a voluminous writer, having published about 
sixty volumes. They are all more or less connected with matters 
and discussions foreign to our time. Few would find time or 
even care to go to them. Yet amid these pages of seeming dry- 
ness are living gems of royal beauty which the world can ill 
afford to lose. That the world needs these treasures and needs 
them now justifies the bringing of them. 

This is first of all a book for the people. Realizing that many 
of the best works today are utterly beyond the reach of the aver- 
age mind because of the use of technicalities of theology and 
philosophy, the author has endeavored to put things in a clear, 
straightforward way to the capacity of the average man. 

Mr. Campbell is unknown today except by a few who have 
spent years in his presence. All need to know him, from the 
least to the greatest. There have been some excellent books 
written about him. The uniqueness of this book is to let him 
speak for himself. 

In a time like this, when brother stands confronting brother, 
when each would designate the other by some harsh and odious 
name, when to slay a reputation is counted among earth's most 
brilliant achievements, when soul would fetter soul — all need to 
hear the clear, strong voice which rang through the nineteenth 
Century calling for Christian Liberty. 

Extensive quotations from others have been made in order 
that Mr. Campbell's ideas might stand, both in their comparison 
and their contrast, along with the best utterance of modern 
thought. None but the ablest scholars of world-wide reputation 
have been used in this way. It is the candid judgment of the 
author that Mr. Campbell suffers nothing from such association. 
On the contrary, he who began to speak one hundred years ago 
proves himself by his own utterance to be a scholar among 
scholars. 

In the author's confining himself to the controlling idea 
of Mr. Campbell in Christian liberty, the treatment may seem 

~6— 



Preface. 

partial, showing but one side of the man. This could not well 
be avoided. The author proposes in the near future to sup- 
plement this work with a treatment of his more constructive 
labors. This will be a development of his controlling ideas 
of liberty working out in his efforts for a Universal Christian 
Brotherhood, The present theme is really limited to a consider- 
ation of his principles of liberty. "Alexander Campbell and 
Christian Unity," will show how he put these principles of 
liberty to work in men's lives and how in the true American 
fashion he joined "Liberty and Union." 

The author wishes to express his thanks to the Christian 
Publishing Company of St. lyouis, Mo., for their kindness in 
granting him the use of Mr. Campbell's works. 

He is under great obligations to Prof. Albert Temple Swing, 
D. D., of the Church History Department of Oberlin Seminary, 
under whom he sat for two years as a pupil, and who so kindly 
read the manuscript, making valuable corrections and sug- 
gestions. 

He also desires to express his gratefulness to Miss lyora N. 
Christe and Miss Jennie H. Jacobson, both of Anaconda, Mont., 
who so patiently type- wrote the MS., the former Part I, and 
the latter Part II. 

Th« Author 



immJ'J.m* 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is eminently fitting that Alexander Campbell be introduced 
to the world anew in the yeiar that witnesses the Centennial of 
the movement which he and his father inaugurated. Mr. Camp- 
bell is not known to this generation. It is surprising how little 
many men of letters and of high reputation in the theological 
world know of this reformer of the nineteenth century. Great 
men, however, like great objects in nature, require distance to 
be seen in their true magnitude. Alexander Campbell's leading 
ideas are much more in harmony with the thought of the pres- 
ent time than they were with the ruling ideas of the age in 
which he lived. Thinkers of today in the realm of religion need 
only to be introduced to this bold thinker of the past century 
to be impressed with his intellectual power, his mental inde- 
pendence and his religious genius. They will readily recognize 
in Mr. Campbell one who loved truth more than popularity, 
liberty more than conformity to existing standards, and loyal- 
ty to Christ more than the cherished religious associations and 
traditions of his early life. Such a man is a blessing to any 
age, and to such men we are indebted for whatever progress 
in religious freedom and in religious thought the world has 
made. 

The author of this volume introduces Mr. Campbell to us 
in one of the most striking aspects of his character — his love 
for, and his exercise of, religious liberty. He had other char- 
acteristics, but without this he never could have been the re- 
former that he was. It is scarcely too much to say that Mr. 
Campbell is little known in this feature of his character, to 
many of those associated with the movement of which he was 
the most distinguished leader. This fact has become increas- 
ingly evident in later years. The timeliness of the book is 

—9— 



Introduction. 

as much due to this imperfect knowledge of Mr. Campbell on 
the part of his friends as to the wider lack of acquaintance- 
ship with him on the part of the religious world at large. If 
ours be a providential movement in which the hand of God is 
manifest, we cannot study too closely the men whom He used 
to inaugurate the movement and to expound its principles. If 
the religious reformation of which Alexander Campbell became 
the most conspicuous representative is to be a continuous Re- 
formation, adjusting itself to the new and changing conditions 
of the world as they arise, the spirit of liberty, and love of 
truth, and willingness to follow the truth whithersoever it 
leads, must characterize its advocates, and especially its leaders, 
in every age. It is in this fact that this volume has its chief 
value. 

Not the least praiseworthy feature of this valuable work is 
the freedom and fullness with which Mr. Campbell is allowed 
to speak for himself. After all, he will stand or fall at the 
bar of impartial history, not by what others have said about 
him, but by what he himself has said on the great themes upon 
which he spoke and wrote. Time, which tests all things, will 
sift out whatever was of transient value, in his utterances, or 
which served a temporary purpose, but that which is of en- 
during worth, because it is the worthy expression of immortal 
truth, will live on and minister to the world's hunger long 
after towers and monuments shall have crumbled from their 
granite bases, and our "little systems" shall have had their 
day and "ceased to be." Some of the statements herein quoted 
deserve to take their place in the world's permanent literature. 
The work is written m a style, and with a literary charm, 
which comport well with the subject treated. There is, too, 
an antecedent preparation in the life and experience of the 
author which has well fitted him for this important task. None 
but a student of the writings of Mr. Campbell can appreciate 
at its true value the splendid personality which lies behind his 
writings, and the greatness of the work he sought to accomplish. 

—10— 



Introduction. 

It is understood that it is the purpose of the author later to 
write a companion book to this on "Alexander Campbell and 
Christian Union." Meantime, he has done well to put this 
fearless reformer before the world as the champion of Christian 
liberty. After examination of its contents, I can most heartily 
recommend it to all lovers of Christian liberty, and especially 
to those, whether among ourselves or others, who have never 
yet come to a real acquaintance with, nor proper appreciation 

of, the "Sage of Bethany." 

J. H. GARRISON. 
W. T. MOORE. 
F. W, AI.LEN. 



—11— 



CONTENTS. 

Part I.— Liberty and the New Wori^d Conditions. 
Chapter I. — A New Appreciation. 

The outcome of an experience, 23. 

The growing mind, 24. 

True personal association, 24. 

Early appreciation, 25. 

New appreciation, 29. 

A two-fold message, 31. 

Inconsistencies, 35. 

Adaptation, 36. 

The fathers living, 39. 
Chapter II.— Liberty and Progress. 

The spirit of freedom, 43. 

Joined the side of progress, 45. 

Two classes of people, 47. 

Dominant note of 19th Century thinkers. 

His task found, 53. 

No reason for fear, 55. 

The great gulf, 56. 

Gauging by the past, 57. 
Chapter III. — The Limits of Knowledge and the Free- 
dom to Think. 

A deep consciousness of limits, 63. 

Obliged to change his views, 67. 

His firm stand for truth, 68. 

Feared the outcome of growing wise, 71. 

Lined up with liberty and progress, 72. 
Chapter IV. — Appreciation of Great Personalities. 

Appreciation of the great personalities of history, 

79. 
Coleridge, 80. 
Luther, 80. 

The world's great benefactors, 82. 
Their extensive influence, 83. 
Bow in reverence, 83. 
Sees God's working in history, 84, 
—IS— 



Contents. 



Indebtedness to various thinkers, 85. 
His unique position, 87. 
His type of mind, 87. 
Chapter V. — A new Voice in Protestantism. 

The tendency to crystallize, 93. 

A new voice heard in Protestantism, 94. 

His protest, 97. 

The fault fundamental, 98. 

A restoration proposed, 100. 

Finds his task, 100. 

•'Back to Christ," 101. 

Part II. — Liberty and the Bibi^e. 
Chapter I.— The Bible Restored. 

Ivuther's experience. 111. 

Mr. Campbell came to his task out of a growing 
experience, 112. 

Hid touch with his age, 115. 

The confronting barriers, 116. 

The general enlightenment, 117. 
lat attitude toward the Bible? 121. 

Champions a new emphasis, 124. 

In the quest of truth he feared not light, 126. 

"The Old -Fashioned Bible," 127. 

Foremost among critics, 129. 
Chapter II. — Criticism. 

As scholar and critic, 135. 

Appealed to ablest critical scholarship, 136. 

What is Biblical Criticism? 137. 

The gyascutus broke loose! 138. 

The savage cry, 138. 

Luther and Melancthon on science, 139. 

What criticism is, 141. 

Arnold, King, Harper, 141. 

Dr. Strong, 142. 

Dr. Farrar, 143. 

Dr. Selleck, 145. 

Professors Smith, Ladd, and Hinsdale, 146. 

Mr. Campbell a "Lower" and a "Higher" critic, 

147. 
One of the most opposed American critics, 148. 

Chapter III. — New Versions. 

As a critic — ^the temper of a scholar, 151. 
—14— 



Contents. 



The surrounding atmosphere, 153. 

Different viewpoints, 154. 

The human side of the Bible, 155. 

Freed from false reverence, 157. 

The timid non-progressive, 158. 

New versions, unsettling, 160. 

Effect on the world of literature, 161. 

Book of God as leader, 162. 

Objections to authorized version, 163. 

Fears only the ''weak minded," 165. 

Enlarges upon reasons for new versions, 166. 

Constant need of new language to convey the 

newly felt, 167. 
Translation affected by interpretation, 168. 
Authorized version penetrated with views of 

translators, 169. 
The daring critic, 169. 
Simply pours it on, 170. 
Objections summarized, 170. 
•'The Word of God," 171. 
Indulges in irony, 173. 
A dear sister, 175. 
His common sense and logic applicable to other 

problems, 175. 
The long time required for truth to dawn, 175. 
The real cause, 176. 

Appreciated the ability of his times, 176. 
Helped to give us the revised Bible, 180. 
A Campbellian note sounded, 181. 

Oiapter IV.— Coming to the Bible. 
Watch the critic as he works, 185. 
The liberty of the individual to interpret the 

Bible, 186. 
The lost gospel due to a false interpretation, 187. 
Come to Bible as to any book, 188. 
In line with world's best critics, 189. 
The rules applied — the Bible a human book, 189. 
The popular method, 192. 
Difficulties which beset the historian, 193. 
Importance of this task, 194. 
No small undertaking, 195. 
Corrupted text, 196. 
Errors few, 197. 

No alarm from human imperfections, 197. 
—15— 



Contents. 



Human andDivine, 200. 
His power in debate, 201. 
Came to Bible critically, 202. 
The personal equation, 203. 
Progress in criticism, 204. 
His optimism, 205. 
No alarm from criticism, 205. 
Bible not the fount of all wisdom, 207. 
Shipwrecks of faith — why? 209. 
Background of his labors, 212. 
The true content, 216. 
Coleridge and Campbell, 218. 
Herder and Campbell, 219. 
Figurative and literal meaning, 221. 
Some examples, 222. 

Chapter V. Hearing the Voice of God. 

Uniqueness of his attitude, 229. 

Bible divine, 230. 

A revelation of man, 231. 

Transcended the popular idea, 234. 

Was coming to modern view, 236. 

A large and gratifying outlook, 242. 

Perfect revelation, 243. 

Infallibility, 244. 

True touch-stone, 245. 

Ivistening for God's voice, 248. 

A book of literature, 249. 

Right attitude, 249. 

The partisan spirit, 251. 

True way to hear God's voice, 251. 

Chapter VI. Certainty of the Divine Voice. 

Bible speaks its own worth, 257. 

Possible and probable that God has spoken, 258. 

Impossible to prove to all, 262. 

Personal and ethical proof has precedence, 264. 

Love and sacrifice the key-note, 264. 

Seeing God, 267. 

Love everywhere, 267. 

The day of the divine demonstration past, 270. 

The real difficulty, 271. 

The ethical, 274. 

The ethical appeal, 275. 

Certainty of the Divine Voice, 282. 

—16— 



Contents. 



The greatest infidels, 282. 

Personal reformation, 283. 

Criticism in the sphere of the personal, 283. 

He transcends even criticism, 284. 

Making a distinction , 286. 

The authority of Jesus, 287. 

Return to Christ as authority, 288. 

Lordship of Jesus, 289. 

Chapter VII. The Heretic. 

A bold and fearless Biblical critic, 293. 
A critical movement, 293. 
As a Protestant, 294. 

Why many thought him a destructionist, 296. 
Modernism, 298. 

Flashing the light upon conservatism, 300. 
Labored for a new Bible, 301. 
Passing through an experience, 302. 
Orthodoxy, 303. 

Consolation in the two never-failing facts, 307. 
The arch-heretic, 307. 
Bigotry, 308. 

The peculiar merit of Mr. Campbell, 309. 
His treatment as a heretic, 315. 
Lifted to the world a new song, 315. 
These singers of new songs, 315. 
Yet the sacrifice has its compensation, 317. 
Chapter VIII. The Outlook— "What of the Night? ' ' 

Their followers do not follow, 323. 

What is the outlook? 324. 

*Tis not night but glorious day! 328. 

Our institutions, 329. 

No chasm should yawn between church and school, 

330. 
Adjusting the truth to the age conditions, 330. 
No new message needed, 331. 
Our message manifold, 333. 
Loyalty to the fathers, 334. 
The tasks that confront the church to-day, 334. 
Progress did not cease at his death, 336. 
Coming to Mr. Campbell, 337. 
His passing to God. Still speaking on earth, 338. 
Bibliographyj 341. 

-17- 



PART I. 

Liberty and the New World Conditions. 



CHAPTER I. 
A New Appreciation. 



If thou findest a good man, rise up early in the morning to go 
to him, and let thy feet wear the steps of his door. — BccL(^Apoc- 
rypha). 

Whereof the man, that with me trod 

This planet, was a noble type. 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 

That friend of mine who lives with God. — Tennyson. 

You have read my book, but not my heart. — Blizabeth B, 
Browning. 

The heroic souls of all time are those who grapple with the 
hard, prosy facts of existence and draw from them a song of 
cheer. These are the true helpers of humanity. The wilderness 
and solitary places are glad for them. And deserts blossom be- 
neath their feet. — B. 

Into her hands fell a branch of beautiful white flowers, but in- 
terspersed with black, ugly thorns. Through tears she said, "I will 
transform the thorns." So adown the years she went transforming 
the thorns; sometimes softly, sometimes with enthusiasm, but al- 
ways with the consciousness that life was growing richer and 
sweeter. For everywhere about her pathway sprang the loveliest 
of flowers. While the air was fragrant and the over-arching sky 
was always blue. — B. 



—22— 



CHAPTER I. 
A Nj^w Appreciation. 

This book is the outcome of an experience. Just such 
an experience as many have passed through during the 
present age of inquiry. The author is assured, then, of a 
large and appreciative audience. It is only in experience 
that souls really touch one another and stand altogether 
revealed. 

Such experiences as followed upon the great awakening 
of thought have been painful, pathetic and often tragic in 
the extreme, and who would seek or ever care to portray 
tne mental anguish of the growing mind? They are 
costly in the passing of the most precious of which our 
lives consist, not only in cherished ideals but often in the 
loss of fond personal associations. How often we startle 
when we awaken to the fact that the saddest death is the 
loss of a soul which failed to rise with us into the reality 
of life! 

Yet amid the grief and loneliness which attend our way 
we still keep the upturned face and trust the "Kindly 
Light" to lead us on, and somehow, we believe that some- 
time, somewhere there will be a recompense "to tear- 
stained, saddened eyes." Somehow, we trust for such 
glad surprise. Somehow, we believe that in the eternal 
morning those angel faces shall greet us — those faces 
^'which we have loved long since, and lost awhile." 

— 25 — 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Still such an experience as attends the evolution of the 
mind in its reach for knowledge is not wholly without its 
compensation even here amid the struggle. What man 
among us even though civilization has its world of com- 
plexities, hardships and toils, would wish to go back to 
the savage life of ease and quiet contentment v/ith its little 
and insignificant? 

In the passing of the old and the coming of the new we 
are not wholly at loss, something of rich and abiding 
worth is left us. Our new knowledge is but a truer grasp 
of the Infinite. In such rise of the soul we are only pass- 
ing out of a stage of mere existence to life itself. Nor 
do we in the effort begrudge the sting. No such "spark 
divine" disturbs the contented beast. In the throe we dis- 
cover the marks of the man. So let the glorious work of 
progress go on ! "We would not hinder it, but would rise 
with its tide! We would step out of the black of night 
into the radiance of day! We are confident that today 
we are living in, not only a new world, but a better world; 
notwithstanding the pessimists. We believe that : 

"Out of the shadow of night 
The world rolls into light, 
* It is daybreak everywhere !" 

Moreover, let us not say that development is only ad- 
vance in knowledge. Let us not think, that in our rise 
to God, we have lost anything of true personal associa- 
tion. On the contrary, in touching the Infinite we are 
brought into a circle of souls over which time and place 

have no power. An unpleasant gulf may yawn between 

—24— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

us and many whom we day by day meet face to face; in 
that there is no correspondence between us in our aim, 
purposes and ideals. They may fail to understand us. But 
we need not yield to such loneliness, for in coming into 
the great heart of God, we have come into companionship 
with the rare and choice souls of all time. Here there is 
mutual understanding. No barrier rises to separate us 
from these, except that which our own wills raise in our 
low and sordid ideals of life. Therefore, we may rise up 
with strength and turning from the apparent loneliness of 
life, meet God and duty singing as we go. 

Mr. Campbell, himself, in one of his quiet soul medita- 
tions feels this great truth. He is contrasting the happy 
lot of those "who sail with wind and tide down the stream 
of popular esteem," with "yonder small company in a little 
bark, toiling against wind and current, ascending the 
rapid stream of vulgar applause." But he comforts his 
soul with this satisfying conclusion : 

"O, my soul, do you not know that every good intention of 
yours, and every good effort of yours, were it only to subdue one 
evil inclination, is witnessed with admiration by all the excellent 
that ever lived * * * when you make one righteous effort to pro- 
mote goodness in yourself, or in any human being, know that 
every good man on earth approves your course, and is upon 3^our 
side; yes, and all the spirits of the dead. * * * Be assured, 
then, in all your struggles in behalf of truth and goodness, that 
every just man upon earth, every happy spirit in the invisible 
world, every angel in heaven, and what is more than all, your 
Redeemer and your Heavenly Father are upon your side."^ 

1 C. B., p. 427. 

—25— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

This was Mr. Emerson's thought when he said: 

"Be of good- cheer, brave spirit! Steadfastly serve that low 
whisper thou hast served. For know God hath a select famil} of 
sons now scattered wide through earth, and each alone, who are 
thy spiritual kindred, and each one by constant service to that in- 
ward law Is weaving the sublime proportion of a true monarch's 
soul. Beauty and strength, the riches of a spotless memory, the 
eloquence of truth, the wisdom got by searching of a clear and 
loving eye that seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts, and 
Time who keeps God's word, brings on the day to seal the mar- 
riage of these minds with thine, thine everlasting lovers." 

From childhood I have appreciated Alexander Camp- 
bell. He was the patron saint of my father and my 
grandfather. His name was a household word from my 
earliest recollection. Father never used to tire of telling 
of his great wisdom and in describing his poweful ser- 
mons. Nor did I ever grow weary in listening to the 
mighty deeds of this wonderful man. He grew up into 
my child-heart with such attachment that I often felt I 
had been deprived of one of earth's chief est joys not to 
know him on earth. His name was often mentioned by 
the preachers who used to visit our home, and they added 
to my store of knowledgCo I came to feel that I knew 
him so well that if I should meet him upon the street I 
would be able to recognize him. 

By the time I had reached young manhood I had this 

conception of him. One in wisdom who far surpassed all 

the old Grecian philosophers and even rivaled Solomon in 

all his glory. In fact I thought of him as in some way 

belonging to those Bible worthies, only somehow he had, 

—26— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

probably by mistake, been left out« So wise he was that 
none in his own age dared to match minds with him. i 
used to wonder if ever again such gigantic mind would 
attach itself to piece of clay. And my loyalty to him was 
as steadfast as my thought of him. When I was once 
offered a scholarship and two hundred dollars a year if I 
would take a course in one of the largest and best equipped 
colleges in America, I refused because it was not con- 
trolled by those who held the faith of Mr. Campbell. I 
well remember the reply I gave to the friend who made 
me this generous offer. "No professor knows anything 
about truth unless he has learned it from Alexander 
Campbell." The friend was assured of one thing, that I 
was a fit subject for college. Nevertheless, one thing is 
certain, I was sincere when I believed that all the wisdom 
of the past, present and future was vested in him. Ig- 
norance was bliss! 

I had learned, too, of his enviable reputation in polem- 
ics and that all feared his dominant trait of pugnacity. 
They told me he could, with Bible in hand, whip the whole 
world, and even had completely demolished a number of 
men beyond recognition, and that the world had never 
heard of them since. Thus he became imaged upon my 
mind as a stalwart fighter. Not unlike the pictures I had 
seen in books, of ancient warriors, except that in place 
of shield and sword, he held the Bible. Furthermore, I 
was told that this Bible he literally believed from cover 
to cover, and that he understood every word in it to be 
mightily inspired by God. 

—27— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

I heard him quoted over and over again by ministers 
who used his word freely. But generally he was used to 
pin down some favorite point in doctrinal dispute. I often 
found myself going to his books in the same way, always 
camping about certain well trodden and sacred places. 
Nor did I have any desire to get far from the camp. For 
some years I enjoyed such an appreciation of Mr. Camp- 
bell. It was sincere as it was loyal, yet it is not the ap- 
preciation that I hold today. It was my earlier apprecia- 
tion, but it became old and passed away. 

It was during this period in my development that I 
became so depressed and pained. I had come into contact 
with the world's great thinkers. Upon comparison I was 
forced to the conclusion that Mr. Campbell in his world 
of ideas was not what he ought to have been, conse- 
quently he fell into ruins all about me. While I still 
admired him as a loyal, sincere servant of God, I thought 
him in his intellectual holdings, narrow and antiquated. 
A few years I passed in such delusion. The supposition 
that I had learned him incorrectly never once occurred 
to me. To go to the sources and know him from his own 
works had never presented itself to my thought. How 
often do we go down the years cherishing delusions sim- 
ply from want of investigation ! 

It was when studying at Oberlin Seminary a few years 
ago that I came under the spell of several professors who 
are masters of thought in the theological world. And 
here from somewhere out of God's great universe the 
thought flashed to me, to go to the works of Alexander 

—28— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Campbell and let him speak for himself. For the past 
two years I have pursued this task in the midst of a busy 
t^astorate. It has been a delightful study of which this 
book is the result. 

Mr. Campbell means more to me now than ever before. 
His contributions to life have captivated my mind and 
enriched my heart. I have learned to love him more and 
more. My firm conviction is that the world has not yet 
come to recognize his true place in religious thought and 
activity. That he was a prophet speaking in much far 
beyond his age, I am impressed. Thus, I have come to 
a new appreciation of Mr. Campbell. In a thousand ways 
the new far exceeds the old. I have come to this appre- 
ciation from a study of his works in the light of modern 
thought and activity. What this appreciation is the book 
will disclose. I have determined to allow Mr. Camp- 
bell to speak for himself to you, just as he has to me. 

The author heartily accords with Laura Gerould Craig 
in her delightful little book "The Centennial Campfire," 
p. 5, "We love to speak of the fathers of the nineteenth 
century Reformation as 'our fathers' and of the move- 
ment as 'our movement.' Our appreciation of its purpose 
and participation in its results seem to impel this appro- 
priation. But such men, such movements, belong to God 
and the world." 

Again, p. 49, she quotes George D. Prentice as saying : 
"His intellect is among the clearest, richest, profoundest 
ever vouchsafed to man ; indeed, it seems to us in the 
quality of abstract thinking he has few, if any, rivals. 

—29— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Every cultivated person who has heard Mr. Campbell 
must have been impressed with the wonderful facility 
with which his faculties move in the highest planes of 
thought. Surely the life of a man thus gifted must be 
a part of the treasure of society. In his essential char- 
acter he belongs to no sect, but to the world." 

That Mr. Campbell's contributions to life is a treasure 
that the world now needs, and that he himself belongs to 
the world is the author's only apology for presenting this 
book. 

No one would think of designating this as 
a destructive age. It is intensely constructive 
to the smallest minutia. Even a criticism of 
the lives of others need not be destructive, and 
will not, if we put ourselves into their presence 
with sympathetic appreciation. The very insight which 
the fathers grant us ought to enable us to come to their 
lives in a constructive way. We do not believe that they 
saw all things in their totality. We often boast that we 
can see farther than did they. This is the peculiar glory 
of the heritage which they have granted us. Nor does 
this render them in our estimation any less great. Since 
they were so large, we are able to stand upon their broad 
shoulders and get a larger, and hence, a truer range of 
things. 

Mr. Campbell was a many-sided man. We shall not 

be able to comprehend him in a moment, perhaps not in a 

lifetime. He had the soul of a poet, and could penetrate 

beneath the crust and pierce the heart of things. His 

—30— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

ability in establishing his ideas upon the bedrock of truth 
is amazing. He possessed a deep and abiding religion 
which his soul experienced and enjoyed. He was pro- 
phetic. His far-seeing eye discerned from the signs of 
the time, the movement and trend of things. He was a 
liberator, critic, educator, scholar, theologian, reformer, 
preacher. 

As a theologian, he had a message for his times, yet he 
spoke for all time. His message for his own age grew 
out of the existing conditions plus his own personality. 
His message for all time is the overflow of his soul in his 
experience of religion. 

Hje who comes to his age with a message requires a 
method, a scheme of thinking based in the conceptions of 
his day. Otherwise he would be out of touch with his 
people and could bring them no vital message. Mr. Camp- 
bell, true child of his age that he was^ had such a scheme. 
Nevertheless, it is true, as all great minds confirm, that 
in these same truth-bringers are truths inconsistent with 
their small schemes of thought, and even transcending 
them. Such truth comes bursting from the soul even 
though there be no place in the scheme large enough to 
hold it. This is because the soul is larger than the head. 
The mind is more than thinking ; it is feeling and willing. 

We always know the certainty of such truth, since the 
soul knows its own. Such thoughts become an expression 
of the soul. They are born, not made. They come as the 
tide, flooding beyond the shore. They come as the dawn, 
vanishing the night-line. They come as the song of the 

—31— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

imprisoned bird. They come as the spring time, burst- 
ing the mould of winter. To our little creed-bound minds 
such thoughts come suggesting the soul of things while 
we awake to the largeness, light, and beauty, all about us. 
Such is true poetry, the heart of art, and the very soul 
of religion. It always finds us. It is soul answering 
to soul. 

The little thought systems have their day and hour, 
their setting in the circumstance. But in one's religion, 
are found the constant and eternal factors which con- 
tinue to bless mankind. The one, is the letter; the 
other, the spirit. One, is the husk; the other, the ker- 
nel. One, is form; the other, essence. One, is the 
phenomenon ; the other, reality. One, is the theological 
expression; the other, religion itself. 

A man's theology is a reasoned, systematic, intellectual 
expression of what he conceives religion to be — 'What it 
means to him. His religion is his life in its relations with 
not only of thoughts, but feelings and deeds often too 
great to classify and frequently bursting from the soul 
spontaneously. 

Hence, it is not in the theology which was partial and 

for the times, but in the religion of Alexander Campbell 

that we will find the constant truths. These are the truths 

that surged in his soul, longing for expression and burst 

through at rare and favored moments.. So he comes to 

us not more in what he consistently thought out, than in 

what he felt, did and aspired. 

It is true, as Mr. Garrison has admirably shown in his 

—32— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

scholarly work on "The Theology of Alexander Camp- 
bell/' that his theology was made out of the only materials 
at hand, was for the times, and is largely antiquated. 
This could hardly be otherwise, since theology is but one's 
expression of what religion means to him. Every theo- 
logian must in this sense be a child of his own age and 
clothe the statements of his conception of religion in the 
language of the day. This is as true of Jesus and Paul 
as of all who followed them. The theological expression 
is but the lifeless thought-form to convey the religion, 
known, felt and experienced in the soul, to the people of 
one's age. And how inadequate they always are even 
at their best ! Who can hope to convey in words to an- 
other, the felt joy or bliss ? Where is the thought-scheme 
large enough to transmit the love that soul feels for soul ? 
How often does the longing soul grow dumb in the effort 
and leave the rest to silence ! The barrenness of all lan- 
guage to express this relation of God to his children was 
one of the constant recognitions of Mr. Campbell. It 
was one of those lofty themes which ever taxed his pow- 
ers of eloquence. Feeling this futile power of words to 
voice religion in the soul he exclaims : 

"On such a theme, who would not wish to be eloquent! But 
how can we equal in style a subject which, when but faintly and in 
prospective viewed, exhausted the sublimest strains of heaven- 
taught prophets, and of poets fired with God's own inspiration — • 
whose hallowed lips tasted not the fabled springs of Pagan muses, 
but the fountain of living waters, springing from eternal love! 
Yet, even these failed to lisp its praise. Nay, the brightest seraph 
that burns in heavenly light, fails in his best effort, and, in pro- 
(3) ^33— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

found thought pores over the marvellous theme. The compassion 
of the eternal God, the benevolence and philanthropy of the Father 
of the whole family in heaven and in earth toward us, the fallen 
children of his love, has transcended the loftiest grasp of the 
highest intelligence, and made to falter the most expressive 
tongue in all the ranks of heavenly powers. In all the raptur- 
ous flights of those morning stars of creation, in all the 
ecstatic acclamations of those elder sons of God, the theme has 
not been reached; and though they have tuned their harps a 
thousand times and swelled their voices in full chorus in count- 
less efforts, yet, the theme is still unequalled, and, as it were, un- 
touched. Vain, then, would be the attempt and fruitless every 
effort, to express in corresponding terms, a subject so divine. 
Indeed we have no language, we have not been taught an alphabet 
adapted to such a theme. 'Come, then, expressive silence, muse its 
praise!'"^ 

On the other hand, the religious truths are constant. 
They come to each age with the demand that they be 
dressed, not in a fashion long gone by, but in nev^rly chos- 
•en forms, in styles adapted to the requirements and cul- 
ture of the age. But the dress changes not the essential 
nature of the truth. Liberty is always liberty, righteous- 
ness is always righteousness, and love is always love, re- 
gardless of the dress of time. It is the constant factors 
that are purposed to stand out in these selections from 
Mr. Campbell. The great abiding religious truths which 
so mightily stirred in his soul for utterance and made him 
ever restless till they came forth. 

It may be out of his many volumes he would have 
spoken different words to you. The author is fully aware 

1 I,iv. Or., p. 26. 

—34— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

that what we carry away from a great personality de- 
pends largely upon what we bring. The master work of 
art is to one a few lines and colors, worth only a casual 
glance. To another it is all this and much more. It 
presents to the eye a delightful picture. In the associa- 
tions of the soul it has a significance which is life itself. 
It becomes a joy forever. It is soul of my soul. So the 
author bringsonly what Alexander Campbell brings to him. 
The author is, also, conscious of the fact, that really 
great minds are subject to inconsistencies. A very small 
mind has such few relations with life as to have them 
tied at both ends. Such a mind is comprehensive to itself 
and to all others. But a mind that opens itself to God's 
vast universe touches too much of life for full and ade- 
quate expression for it all. This fact furnishes the rea- 
son why Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Luther and even Jesus 
have each had such a varied following. For instance, 
Paul finds in Jesus his doctrine of justification by faith 
only, and James his doctrine that faith without works is 
dead, being alone. Both of these ideas are found in Jesus, 
but while one built upon one side of the Master's truth, 
the other built upon the other side. Men in following 
others often become extremists in the partial. It may 
be that you in coming to Mr. CampbelFs many-sided 
thought would have followed a different trend. Be that 
as it may, after all it still remains that we get largely what 
we bring. The author brought to him his own experi- 
ence and let him speak to him. Says President King '^ 

2 The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual I,ife, p. 41. 

—35— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

"After all, the one great teacher is life, and our best words to 
another of even the deepest in us must fall resultless, until life has 
brought to the other the experience out of which the words can be 
interpreted. * * * " 

In Whitman^s putting: 

" *No one can acquire for another — not one, . 

No one can grow for another — not one. 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him. 

The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him.*" 

Mr. Campbell was not only largely capacitated for the 
reception of truth, but in dispensing truth, he had that 
•Rne sense of adaptation which is characteristic of great- 
ness. In his teaching and preaching he gave constant rec- 
ognition to that fundamental pedagogical law, that truth, 
in order to be received and avail good, must be leveled 
to the capacity of the hearer. Such a course often makes 
one appear inconsistent. The teacher's instruction about 
the star would to the child be quite different than to the 
man of celestial knowledge, if to each any beneficial 
knowledge were brought. 

He speaks about the Savior's pedagogical method in 
veiling his mission through the medium of parables. Only 
by degrees, from the known to the unknown, does he 
teach. And this, too, "as the contingencies of his public 
ministrations required." So about some lofty truths 
which he desires to impart to the people he says of the 
Savior's method: 

"We wish to imitate him in this particular, so far as we can 
have the full assurance of understanding, and so far only as the 

—36— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

contingencies of the present living world may render it convenient 
and fitting. He spake in parables and he spake without them, and 
we see no good reason why his example in this particular should 
not in certain conditions and circumstances be both prudential and 
useful."^ 

Of Mr. Campbell's prudence in adaptation, Dr. W. T. 
Moore, who sat under the "Sage of Bethany'* as pupil, 
speaks. On the reason why Mr, Campbell spoke with 
such reserve in his popular lectures to young men on the 
subject of Geology he mentions the recency of the science 
and its slowness in establishing itself upon a firm basis. 

He says:^ 

"This, doubtless, was one reason why he did not ven- 
ture much upon it. But there was another all-controlling 
reason which influenced him, and this will at once ex- 
plain in a satisfactory manner to all unprejudiced minds, 
why he so summarily disposed of the difficulties between 
the Geological and Mosaic records. He was speaking to 
a class of young men, many of whom knew little or noth- 
ing about geology, whose faith in the Christian religion 
might easily have been shaken by an attempt to harmonize 
the Geological and Mosaic accounts, when it must neces- 
sarily be done at the apparent expense of the latter. To 
treat the whole subject of Geology so that all the stu- 
dents could understand its teachings, in a course of popu- 
lar lectures not intended especially for such subjects, was 
simply impossible. Hence, it was better to dispose of 
all questions of this kind by confining himself to the plain 
statements of the Bible. '•' * * For this we ought to 

1 Mill. Har. 1860, p. 308. 

t I,ect. on Pent., pp. 139, 140. 

—37-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

commend him, and especially for the good sense he mani- 
fested in refusing to embark on the ocean of speculation, 
while addressing a class of young men who were wholly 
unprepared for it." One of the greatest teachers of young 
men in America said that he in his teaching never sug- 
gested doubts to the mind, but when those doubts arose 
out of the mind's own understanding of things, he, then, 
explained, and elucidated. He first let the doubt arise, 
but did not plant it. 

Mr. Campbell puts the matter in this plain, biblical 
fashion : 

"We should consider the circumstances of any people before 
we address them. Do we address Jews? Let us address them as 
the Apostles did. Persuade them out of their own law that Jesus 
is the Messiah. Do we address professed Christians ? Let us imi- 
tate the Apostolic addresses in the epistles." 

*'Do we preach to Barbarians? Let us address them as Paul 
preached to the Lycaonians. Speak to their consciences. Do we 
preach to polished infidels or idolaters? Let us speak to them as 
Paul spake to the Athenians. Speak to their consciences."* 

Again, he says: 

"On some occasions, we must indeed^ address ourselves to all 
classes, conditions, and forms of humanity, and therefore, we 
must, as the great Teacher and his great Apostle did, 'become all 
things to all men,' and speak all things to all men in adaptation to 
their conditions and capacities.'" 

In thus fitting the truth to the condition he was enabl- 
ed to put the Bible to its designed use. First, to come to 

1 Hist. Doc., p. 278. • Mill. Har. 1858, p. 455. 

^38— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

such a knowledge of it himself as to bring his own soul 
into harmony with God, and then to bring it to others 
in such a way, in such adaptation to their mental hold- 
ings, that they, too, might lay hold of it and come into 
that Divine fellowship. Such is the only proper method 
of conveying truth, yet it has the peculiar effect of pre- 
senting a varied whole when the several teachings are 
brought together. This accounts for many of the so- 
thought inconsistencies. 

No, the fathers are not dead! They are still living and 
at work in the world. The word and spirit of Mr. Camp- 
bell still live. Today he is lifting up his voice as tri- 
umphantly as he did a century ago. Today just as truly 
as throughout the past century he is going up and down 
our land, championing the cause of religious freedom, 
calling for peace and harmony among men, and pleading 
for the education of man. He still lives, and through 
thousands of great personalities touched by his own, he 
calls to the twentieth century to come up higher. David's 
word in Browning's Saul is true of Mr. Campbell: 

"Each deed thou hast done 

Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun 
Looking down on the earth, tho' clouds spoil him, tho' tempests 

efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere 

trace 
The results of his past summer prime, — so each ray of thy will. 
Every flash of thy passion, and prowess, long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give 

forth 
A like cheer to their sons; who in turn, fill the South and the 

North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of." 

—39— 



CHAPTER n. 
Liberty and Progress. 



There is no grand poem in the world but is at bottom a biog- 
raphy — the life of a man. — Carlyle. 

I had my choice when I commenced. I bid neither for soft 
eulogies, big money returns, nor the approbation of existing 
schools and conventions. As now fulfilled after thirty years, 
the best of my achievement is, that I have had my say entirely 
my own way, and put it unerringly on record — ^the value thereof 
to be decided by time. — Walt Whitman. 

Authority says to it: — Rest where thou art; I alone strike 
the hour of the march; when I am silent everything should rest, 
for all progress which is accomplished without me and beyond 
me, is impious. The human mind interrogates itself; it feels 
its own right and power; it finds the germ of progress is in 
itself, that strength and right come to it from God, and not 
from an intermediate power coming between itself and God, as 
if charged to lead it. — Mazzini. 

I have faith in God, in the power of truth, and in the his- 
toric logic of things. I feel in my inmost heart that the delay 
is not for long. The principle which was the soul of the Old 
World is exhausted. It is our part to clear the way for the 
new principle; and should we perish in the undertaking, it shall 
yet be cleared. — Mazzini. 



—42— 



CHAPTER II. 
LIBERTY AND PROGRESS. 

"And lo ! the fullness of the time has come, 
And over all the exile's Western home, 
From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom!" 

At the beginning of the 19th century this was not all 
poetry, neither was it all fact ; else no place had been for 
the Old World's gift to the New. In the year 1809 
Scotland and Ireland joined hands in giving to America 
a young man of twenty-one, educated in the University of 
Glasgow, and by nature splendidly endowed. In his great 
nature the spirit of freedom hulked large. Into this land 
of freedom he came with the spirit of liberty throbbing 
mightily in his breast. With many other of the large 
souls of his day he felt, 

"We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
That Shakespeare spake; the Faith and morals hold 
Which Milton held." 

In Alexander Campbell America obtained one in whom 
the spirit of liberty not only grew strong with the years, 
but whose spirit was ever restless till freedom's thought 
became deed. 

Bright was the land with prospect and auspicious 

the new century, as he stepped ashore in the New World 

to work out his life's task. Such Hfe must find fullest 

^-43— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

expression. It becomes necessary to test the mettle of 
the man. Herein environment must meet man half way. 
There must be no shackles of bondage, no narrow con- 
finement. He must find room to act, else he must make 
room. Mr. Campbell, himself, felt such need for per- 
sonality when he said: 

"To know the force of character of any individual, he must 
be placed in a position on a theater where he has room to 
act his part fully. Few persons ever know themselves or their 
most intimate friends and relatives, because of the want of 
opportunity of developing themselves."^ 

Mr. Campbell was well aware that America, with all 
its boast of freedom, was not wholly free ; and the world 
for which he existed still less. Yet America furnished 
room, the most opportune room, through which he might 
reach the whole world. Though the times were out of 
joint, he was not one to sit and wait for better conditions. 
At once he arose and delivered himself in the spirit of 
the poet: 

"Heredity bondsmen! Know ye not, 
Who would be free, themselves must 
Strike the blow?" 

From the year of his landing, 1809, till his death, 1866^» 
he ceased not to strike. And every blow was a blow 
for freedom. To him, the first consideration in a true 
protestantism is liberty. This is fundamental since it is 
inherent. He says : 

"The dearest liberty on earth is liberty of conscience; and 

1 Add., p. 62. 

.-44— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

this lost, all other liberty is but a name — a charm that lulls to 
sleep."i 

Again 

"Freedom of thought, and freedom of action, within the 
prescribed area of rational and responsible beings, are the 
zenith of all the aspirations of the human heart."^^ 

It is more than a curious interest in historical obser- 
vation to witness with what forces great characters ally 
themselves. The side one takes is often an index to his 
character. Mr. Campbell joined himself to the side of 
progress. Before many of us were born he had already 
felt the thrill of the New Age. The 19th Century, the 
age which saw progress, had burst upon the world. 
Mr. Campbell felt that to close his eyes to progress 
would be to be blind toward God. Not to face progress 
would be to turn his back upon Heaven. The fellow- 
ship of the new was communion with the Divine. To 
be out of harmony with the 19th Century spirit of prog- 
ress was to be out of tune with the Infinite. So he 
says, 

"The intellectual nature vouchsafed to man communes with 
the Supreme Intelligence in all his various and boundless works; 
and such is its love of new ideas, of new conceptions of the 
almighty source of its being and bliss, that if it could imagine 
any fixed sum_mit of its attainments, even in the heavens, beyond 
which it could add no new discoveries, that summit would be 
the boundary of its glory and of bliss; and repining, as did the 
Grecian chief, that no new worlds were yet to be conquered, 

1 Bapt., p. 409. 2 I^ct. onPent.,p. 146. 

—45-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

heaven itself would cease to be the place of infinite delight, the 
ultimate and eternal home of man."^ 

Moreover he feels that in order to be in touch with 
one's own age, to do it any real service, he must have 
the open mind. This is especially true of young men 
whom he addresses in these words, 

"You owe it to yourselves, your country and the human race, 
to understand the genius and character of your own age, and 
its bearing upon the future, as far as you can."^ 

This is all the more necessary to him at the present 
time, since, 

"There are new phenomena in our heavens, and new devel- 
opments in our country and age which claim, and must com- 
mand our attention. The age and the country we live in are 
onward in their career, and we should be onward in our en- 
deavors to keep up with them; and we should individually, and 
in our concerted and concurrent action co-operate with the spirit 
and tendency of our times."^ 

He was not one to rest in the popular idea, so de- 
pressing to human effort, that all the great and capable 
men had lived in the past. With him past efficiency 
made present greatness not only possible, but gave to 
it greater reaches. He says, 

"We live now in the evening of the 19th Century — standing 
upon the giant shoulders of the great men of Pagandom and 
Romandom ; and with a government resting upon these Herculean 
columns, we occupy a position, in art, science and literature, 
transcendently paramount to that attained or enjoyed by any 

1 Add., p. 123. 2 Add., p. 502. s Mill. Har. 1860, p. 5. 

—46— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

other people or nation, that has ever figured in the grand drama 
of political or religious history."^ 

Not in the past was the golden age. His face was to- 
ward the future. His fine sense of progress saw things 
in evolution, — they were becoming. He says, 

"Society is not yet fully civilized. It is only beginning to 
be. Things are in process, in progress to another age — a 
golden — a millennial — a blissful period in human history."* 

Again he concords with a great philosopher and histo- 
rian whom he quotes, 

"Society and civilization are yet in their childhood. How- 
ever great the distance they have advanced, that which they have 
before them is incomparably, is infinitely greater.'" 

The ipth Century has distinguished two classes of 
people. The incoming revolution of change in thought 
and in the conception of things drew the dividing line. 
One class in their outlook upon life closed their eyes 
to the new. They felt that the land was not able to 
bear so much that was strange and contrary to repose. 
The new idea was overwhelming and upsetting, and 
even required renewed effort since it called for readjust- 
ment. They said, "The old is good enough. If the 
new had been true the fathers who were wiser than we 
would long ago have discovered it." A sad and sorry 
spectacle they presented. Having eyes, they saw not; 
and having ears, they heard not. Still clutching the 
old, though it had become threadbare and meaningless. 
Fearing the new, they grew faint hearted and dejected 

1 1,ect. on Pent., p. 145. 2 Add., p. 69. 8 Add., p. 54. 

—47— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

in spirit; still they cherished the old and turned their 
hearts as stone toward progress. The other class opened 
their minds to the incoming tide, while their hearts grew 
responsive. These recognized a changed world and the 
necessary struggle for readjustment. But they did not 
begrudge the toil. Even when compelled to yield up the 
conceptions that had cost them so much and had grown 
dear in association, they felt that truth brought its own 
reward. 

If compelled to surrender our old opinions about mat- 
ters we have obtained in exchange a richer and truer 
knowledge. It is but giving up a small perspective for 
a large perspective. Into such relations to God's vast 
universe are we brought, that face to face we may see 
him marshaling his affairs =^ and seeing the Invisible, 
we still live. We may be forced to give up our time 
relations, but the larger, grander, and more glorious 
eternal relations are ours. Yet how seldom do we open 
our minds to these larger relations! It is true, 

"That mind and soul according well 
May make one music as before, 
But — vaster." 

These progressive spirits have ever been buoyant with 
hope. They are the optimists of their age. They are 
the men of faith who believe that 

"God's in His Heaven, 
All's right with the world." 

They are the world's prophets pointing up to God. Every 

—48— 






Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

new condition is to such an inspiration to bestir them- 
selves in the struggle of life and to gain victory. 

Mr. Campbell became one of the most progressive 
spirits of his day. To those who failed to feel the mag- 
nitude of the day and turned their eyes only to the past, 
finding there the consummation of all glory and perfec- 
tion, he says, 

"The world, many think, is too old, and men have reflected 
so deeply on all subjects that there is nothing to be originated, 
and little advance to be made in any department of thought. 
This is a great mistake. The last four hundred years have 
done more, by new discoveries and inventions, to improve human 
circumstances, than the twelve hundred years before."^ 

So great is this revolution that Mr. Campbell designates 
it as the "March of Mind," "the age of reason," and 
"brilliant advances into the mysteries of Nature." He 
goes on to say, 

"Certain it is, that we are not satisfied with ourselves, and 
that a spirit of inquiry, revolution and change is now abroad in 
the land, which no man can limit or restrain."^ 

H»e was not alone in his outlook upon the changing 
order of things. It is the dominant note of igth Century 
thinkers. W. T. Stead says : "Everywhere the old order 
is changing and giving place to the new. The human 
race is now at one of the crucial periods in its history 
when the fountains of the great deep are broken up, 
and the flood of change submerges all the old-established 

1 C. B., p. 639. 8 Add., p. 311. 

(.4) --49- 



'Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

institutions and conventions in the midst of which pre- 
ceding generations have lived and died." 

All departments of science have been completely revo- 
lutionized. Prof. Fisk, philosopher and historian, says: 
"In their mental habits, in their methods of inquiry, 
and in the data at their command, the men of the pres- 
ent day who have fully kept pace with the scientific move- 
ment are separated from the men whose education ended 
in 1830 by an unmeasurably wider gulf than has ever 
before divided one progressive generation of men from 
their predecessors."^ Prof. Alford Russel Wallace says: 
"To get any adequate comparison with the 19th Century 
we must take, not any preceding century, or group of 
centuries, but rather the whole preceding epoch of hu- 
man history." 

Many conspiring forces have brought the new-world 
conditions. Josiah Strong declared: "We are entering 
on a new era, of which the 20th Century will be the 
beginning for which the 19th Century has been the prep- 
aration." There have been great physical changes, in 
which steam and electricity have figured prominently. 
The ocean passage, which once required weeks, is now 
a matter of but a few days. Inventions affecting time 
and space have brought nearer together all the nations 
of the earth, which God has made of one blood. Much 
of the progress has been since Mr. Campbell's day. 
Though he saw it coming, felt its thrill and became its 
prophet to his age. Wireless telegraphy is a thing of 

1 The Idea of God, p. 56. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

yesterday. Today you may step into your telegraph 
office and communicate with your friend in mid-Atlantic, 
over one hundred ocean liners being equipped with wire- 
less telegraphy. 

The perfection of the microscope brings to our eye^ 
the myriads of life a thousand times too small to be 
see« by the naked eye. The Copernican Astronomy with 
telescope and spectroscope brings the millions of other 
worlds to our very doors. And we not only measure 
their distances, but tell what they are made of. The 
study of geology was first placed upon a scientific basis 
in 1830; wonderful have been its triumphs since that 
day! We have also a nev/ physics, a new biology, and 
a new chemistry ! 

Balfour, in his Cambridge address, declared: "No 
century has seen so great a change in our intellectual 
apprehension of the world in which we live as the nine- 
teenth!" A vast sky canopies today and he who thinks 
he has an imagination that grasps it all has only ceased 
to think! Skilled specialists fill every department of 
thought and activity. History has been re-stated not 
only in its facts, but principles. The archaeologist with 
his spade has overturned our former theories and out- 
ruled our chronology, giving us a high civilization long 
before Adam, according to our accepted Bible chronol- 
ogy. The study of comparative religions, which is very 
recent, opens for us the religious books of humanity. 
Theology is being re-stated and creeds revised or thrown 
away. 

—51— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

No more extensive or revolutionary has been man's 
outward expansion than his inward scrutiny. Amid the 
blaze of worlds he is made to cry out with the Psalmist, 
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Not a 
poor worm of the dust, as some have proclaimed. 

The new psychology comes forth in these days, con- 
firming the revelation of the Hebrew poet, "Thou hast 
made him a little lower than God, and crownest him 
with glory and honor." In the words of a great thinker, 
"Man is neither the master nor the slave of nature; he 
is the interpreter. Man consummates the universe and 
gives a voice to the mute creation." Psychology and 
pedagogy have turned our eyes within, and we behold 
the image and likeness of God — and truth is there. We 
are learning to approach man in the interests of heaven, 
not with a feeling that he is a miserable creature to 
whom we bring a God, but desiring to tear away the 
barriers so that God and the Truth already there may 
shine out. Browning puts it right in Paracelsus: 

"Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe : 
There is an inmost center in us all, 
Where truth abides in fulness; and around 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth ; 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh, 
Blinds it, and makes all error; and 'to know' 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without." 

A world-wide revival in child study is already in prog- 

—52-- 



m 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

ress. Past neglect and future possibilities are duly rec- 
ognized, and public schools are equipping themselves with 
modern appliances. We are living in a sublime age! 
The educational impulse is sweeping through the world ! 
Schools, colleges and great universities feel the new 
life thrill! These tendencies Mr. Campbell fully recog- 
nized in his day, as in an address on education he says, 

"This spirit of free inquiry first seized the church, then the 
state, then the colleges, then the schools; and now, even now, in 
the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it has invaded not 
only the penetralia of every temple, but even the inmost recesses 
of the nursery, the infant head, the infant brain; and, in full 
harmony with the divining spirit of the age, are we now in 
solemn conclave assembled to inquire if aught of error yet re- 
mains unscathed, or of truth discovered, in the most useful 
among sciences and arts — that of educating man."^ 

In a general way Lotze characterizes the new age as 
"that enlightenment, destroying in order to reconstruct, 
which sought to break the dominion of all prejudice, and 
to undermine every ill-founded belief."^ 

It is in the religious sphere that Mr. Campbell finds 
his task. In this realm the change to him is not only 
widely evident, but most momentous. He says, 

"Things ecclesiastic are moving forward to a new issue. The 
Christian system is undergoing an examination in the present 
day, both as to its evidence and signification, wholly unprece- 
dented since the days of the grand defection."^ 

Again he says, 

"This is one of the most momentous and eventful periods 
1 Add., p. 455. 2 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 286. 3 Ch. Sys., p. 12. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of the history of Christianity since the commencement of our 
recollection of the religious world, and, we think, from the 
commencement of the present century. All religious denomi- 
nations are shaking. Christians in all parties are looking with 
inquisitive eyes into the sacred books, and examining the plat- 
forms of their respective schismatical establishments. Many 
run to and fro, and knowledge is on the increase * * the cry 
of 'Reform!' is now the loudest and longest which falls upon 
the ear from all the winds of heaven. Light mental, as light 
natural, is one of the most insinuating powers, and the most ir- 
resistible and rapid in its progress, we know anything of. Its 
'swift-winged arrows pierce the deep recesses of human hearts, 
and carry down the true images of things to the retina of the 
human soul. The Bible, the foundation of religious light, is 
more generally distributed and more generally read now than at 
any former period. Even the measures often designed to up- 
hold religious sects, are becoming battering rams to break 
down the walls of separation. Every day's report brings to our 
ears some new triumph of light over darkness — of truth over 
error — and of liberal minds over the enslaved and enslaving 
genius of sectarian despotism."^ 

But is there not great danger in opening the mind 
to new truth? Mr. Campbell believed that the greater 
danger lay on the side of the closed mind. He says, 

"We live in the midst of a great moral revolution. Opinions 
held sacred by our fathers, usages consecrated by the devotion 
of ages, institutions venerated by the most venerable of mankind 
are now subjected to the same cold, rigid analysis, and made to 
pass through the same unsparing ordeal, to which the most anti- 
quated errors and the most baseless hypotheses of the most 
reckless innovators are not so unmercifully doomed * * Times 
of revolution are, however, more or less, dangerous times. * * 

1 C. B., p. 147. 

—54— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Stimulated by former conquests over error, and the new discov- 
eries since made, the human mind seems intent on carrying on 
war against false assumptions and unwarranted conclusions — as 
if determined to advance from victory to victory over every 
species of error and delusion * * But there are many things 
already established. The human mind is not wholly at sea 
without pilot or compass. The mariner's compass has been 
invented. And many truths are immovably fixed and certain 
in every well-cultivated and intelligent mind."^ 

There is, therefore, no reason for fear. One need not 
be disconcerted or grow pessimistic. Mr. Campbell v^ras 
not afraid of the pain of a new idea. On the contrary 
he is most optimistic as he goes on to point out the 
vast possibilities open for research, 

"Physical nature is, indeed, still open to investigation in 
some of her most interesting and sublime departments. Astron- 
omy is yet in process of development. Geology is a new science, 
still incomplete and imperfect. The physical constitution of 
man has yet numerous mysteries sealed from the most discrim- 
inating ^e."" 

One need not become alarmed in a time of change of 
conception about material things as long as there is no 
degradation of the personal, as long as there remains 
within man a sure place^ — a world of abiding worth. 
He goes on to say, 

"There is an empire in the human heart over which no man 
or angel can preside, and a throne in the midst of it on which 
no Kingdom can sit but the King of Eternity."^ 

He says, 

1 Add., p. 311. 2 Add., 312. 3 Add., p. 313. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

"Such an age is always an age of extremes; but things will 
regulate themselves and settle down on the true foundation! 
'Many are running to and fro' and certainly knowledge is on 
the increase."i 

The gulf between Eastern Civilization and Western 
Civilization is the difference between customary civili- 
zation and changeable civilization. A striking illustra- 
tion of this is the passing of the savage from custom 
to civilization. The government may grant them in- 
numerable benefits in freedom, prosperity and peace, yet 
it is true that they fail to understand the significance 
of the change. They recognize no superiority of the 
new over the customary. An Indian agent says, "They 
can not make you out. What puzzles them is yout 
constant disposition to change, or, as you call it, im- 
provement. Their own life in every detail being regu- 
lated by ancient usage, they can not comprehend a 
policy which is always bringing something new ; they 
do not a bit believe that the desire to make them com- 
fortable and happy is the root of it; they believe, on 
the contrary, that you are aiming at something which 
they do not understand — that you mean to 'take away 
their religion'; in a word, that the end and object of 
all these continued changes is to make Indians not what 
they are and what they like to be, but something new 
and different from what they are and what they would 
like to be."2 

This feeling still clings to man in various degrees as 

1 Ch. Sys., p, 12. 2 Physics and Politics, p. 156. 

— 5&— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

he rises from step to step in enlightenment and cul- 
ture. 

The objection raised to Mr. Campbell's acceptance of 
the new was, 

"This has been so long concealed from the people, and so 
lately brought to our view, that we can not acquiesce in it." 
(He answers) 

"This objection would have made unavailing every attempt 
at reformation, or illumination of the mind, or change in the 
condition and enjoyments of society, ever attempted. Besides, 
do not the experiences of all the religions — the observations of 
the intelligent — the practical result of all creeds, reformations, 
and improvements — and the expectations and longings of society 
— warrant the conclusion that either some new revelation, or 
some new development of the revelation of God must be made, 
before the hopes and expectations of all true Christians can be 
realized, or Christianity save and reform the nations of the 
world ?"i 

He deeply deplores the fact that men in the light of 
the glorious, auspicious 19th Century will persist in 
gauging their minds by the infallibility of the fathers* 
He says 

'The doctrines of our forefathers have been constituted, in 
practical life, the rules of our faith. We must have their ideas, 
their terms, their intellectual associations; everything must be 
consecrated by antiquity, or we are not orthodox. Once more 
we ask, who would not labor to redeem society from such men- 
tal servitude? Who can suppose that he has too much to sacri- 
fice, to bring men back to God, and to induce them to think for 
themselves, as if they had a mind and conscience of their own."* 

1 Ch. Sys., p. 250. l C. B., p. 201. 

—57— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Stereotyped things found no place in his thought. As 
he surveys the past he finds the cause of lack of prog- 
ress just in this fact of fixedness. He says, 

"In physics or in metaphysics, in philosophy or in science, there 
was no progress — no perceptible or valuable progress — for many 
centuries; during, indeed, the entire reign of the Aristotelian 
philosophy and the tyranny of the mere logical and catechetical 
learning. Answers printed or written, for stereotyped ques- 
tions, propounded in seminaries of learning — I care not what 
the subject or the science — never made a thinker, a scholar, a 
philosopher, or a great man, much less a saint or an heir of im- 
mortality."* 

This state of fixing to the past in which there could 
be no possible progress greatly affected men in Mr. 
Campbell's day. His new and strange ideas, and his 
large faith in the progress of things resolved many of 
the conservative into lifelong opponents. He says of 
these never-learning, non-progressive opponents, 

"Our opponents can not, or will not, understand how any 
society can be in progress to a better order of things than that 
under which they may have commenced their pilgrimage. [In 
fact herein lay the real failure of the Protestant Reformation.] 
Their sectarian policies were soon formed, and the limits of their 
reformation were soon fixed; beyond which it soon became 
heretical to move. The founders of all new schisms not only 
saw, through a glass darkly, but their horizon was so circum- 
scribed with human traditions, that they only aimed at moving 
a few paces from the hive in which they were generated. A 
new creed was soon adopted, and then their stature was com- 
plete. They bounded from infancy to manhood in a few days, 

1 Add., p. 308. 

—58— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

and decided, if any presume further to advance, they should be 
treated as those who had refused to move from the old hive. 
Hence it became as censurable to grow beyond a certain stand- 
ard, as not to grow at all."^ 

He then goes on to show how, in coming to the word 
of God as our norm we are not hopelessly fixed, but 
moving onward. 

"But in coming up to this standard of knowledge, faith and 
behavior, we have something yet before us, to which we have 
not attained."^ 

Thus Mr. Campbell's character stands out in clear 
outline upon the times. He would not bury himself in 
antiquity. He is essentially modern in his spirit and 
love for progress. 

Ch. Sys., p. 292. 2 Ibid. 



—59— 



CHAPTER IIL 

The Limits of Knowledge and the Freedom 

to Think. 



Whatever creed be taught, or land betrod, 
Man's conscience is the oracle of God. — Byron. 

He who abandons the personal search for truth, under what- 
ever pretext, abandons truth. — Drummond. 

Accept the intellect, and it will accept us. Be the lowly 
ministers of that pure omniscience, and deny it not before men. 
It will burn up all profane literature, all base current opinions, 
all the false powers of the world, as in a moment of time. — 
Emerson. 

It is more necessary for us to be active than to be ortho- 
dox. To be orthodox is what we wish to be, but we can only 
truly reach it by being honest, by being original, by seeing with 
our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. — Drummond. 

Born with a love for truth and liberty. 

And earnest for the public right, he stands 
Like solitary pine in wasted lands, — 

On some paladin of old legends, he 
Would live that other souls like his be free, 

Not caring for self or pelf or pandering power, 
He thunders incessant, earnest, hour by hour, 

Till some olcj despot shackle cease to be. 

—Wilfred Campbell 



-62^ 



CHAPTER III. 

TH'E LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE 
FREEDOM TO THINK. 

There is a naive conception abroad that insight has 
no Hmits, that the great mind knows it all. This is the 
essence of dogma, bigotry and tyranny. If one lives in 
a very small world this may be self-evident as regards 
all within his narrow confines. The frog in the well 
croaked loud and long as no other well he knew, and 
this he knew and knew — through and through. Let no 
one suppose that Mr. Campbell, in the full blaze of 19th 
Century light and progress, felt that he had perfectly 
read the world through. Within his broad, transcendent 
mind there was a deep consciousness of limits. So with 
all truly great minds ! 'Tis only the little, narrow minds 
that pose as completeness, and brush upon life with bold, 
assuming air of infallibility. Max Miiller was feeling 
the truth of this when in his "Last Essays*' he said: 
"The lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is 
an old lesson, but it has to be taught again and again. 
It was taught by Buddha, it was taught by Socrates^ and 
it was taught for the last time in most powerful manner 
by Kant. 'Philosophy has been called the knowledge of 
our knowledge ! it might be called more truly the knowl- 

—63— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

edge of our ignorance, or, to adopt the more moderate 
language of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our 
knowledge."* 

Mr. Campbell possessed this knowledge without lim- 
its. No one better than he recognized both the limits 
and relativity of all human knowledge. The very charm 
of his life was his humility. His most constant desire 
was to be a true disciple, a learner. In view of man's 
meagerness of knowledge, he says, 

"If Socrates, the great master of Grecian philosophy, could 
boast that he had attained so much knowledge of the universe 
as to be confident that he knew nothing about it — comprehend 
no part of it, how much of that science of ignorance ought we 
to possess; to whom so many fountains of intelligence have 
been opened from which the Sage of Athens was debarred."^ 

One's consciousness of limits is commensurate with 
the range of one's outlook. Recognizing the vastness, 
complexity, and unity of the universe, he says, 

"As, then, the systems of the universe, and the sciences which 
treat of them, run into each other and mutually lend light, illus- 
tration, and development, it is a mark of imbecility of mind rather 
than of strength — of folly rather than of wisdom — for any one to 
dogmatize with an air of infallibility, or to assume the attitude 
of perfect intelligence on any one subject of human thought, 
without an intimate knowledge of the whole universe. But as 
such knowledge is not within the grasp of feeble, mortal man, 
whose horizon is a point of creation, and whose days are but a 
moment of time, it is superlatively incongruous for any son of 
science, or of religion, to affirm that this or that issue is abso- 

J Wfe and Religion, p. 99. 2 Add., 98. 

—64— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

lutely irrational, unjust, or unfitting the schemes of eternal Provi- 
dence or the purposes of the supreme wisdom and benevolence, 
only as he is guided by the oracles of infallible wisdom or the 
inspirations of the Almighty. 

"Who could pronounce upon the wisdom and utility of a single 
joint, without a knowledge of the limb to which it belongs; of 
that limb, without an understanding of the body to which it 
ministers; of that body without a clear perception of the world 
in which it moves, and of the relations which it sustains; of that 
world, without some acquaintance with the solar system of which 
it is a small part; of that particular solar system, without a 
general and even intimate knowledge of all the kindred systems; 
of all these kindred systems without a thorough comprehension 
of the ultimate design, without a perfect intelligence of that in- 
comprehensible Being by whom and for whom all things were 
created and made? How gracefully, then, sits unassuming 
modesty on all the reasonings of man! The true philosopher 
and the true Christian, therefore, delight always to appear in 
the unaffected custom of humility, candor, and docility. 

'He through vast immensity can pierce, 
See worlds on worlds compose one universe; 
Observe how system into system runs, 
What planets circle other suns; 
What varied beings people every star, 
May tell how God has made us as we are.' "^ 

A little child came to Walt. Whitman with its arms 
full of grass, asking the v^ise poet, "What is this?" 
With mind akin to Mr. Campbell's as he reasons above, 
Mr. Whitman asks in his naive way — though blunt, 
none the less true — "How could I answer the child? 
I do not know what it is, any more than he?" Both 

1 Ch. Sys., p. 14. 

(5) —65— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Mr. Campbell and Mr. Whitman were only feeling that 
sense of finiteness of which all the truly great are deeply 
conscious as they try to think out life and its relations 
in the presence of the Infinite. It is but the experience 
of a Newton, after a lifetime of thought and reflection, 
standing upon the shore with only a few small pebbles 
in his hand. It is but a Tennyson, standing modestly 
before a wall of stone, talking the inmost feeling of his 
heart to the little flower: 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies; 
Hold you here in my hand, root and all, 
Little flower : but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and Man is." 

As Mr. Campbell meditates upon the instinct of ani- 
mals, which so wondrously and variously displays itself 
in "kindness," "good nature," and "affection," he ob- 
serves that sometimes they are "moved by a divine influ- 
ence." He is unable to reason it all out, but finds here 
evidence of the limits of man's knowledge as he con- 
cludes, 

"There are many things which are evident, yet altogether 
inexplicable. * * * Until we know more of God than can be 
revealed or known in this mortal state, we must be content to 
say of a thousand things a thousand times, we cannot under- 
stand how, or why, or wherefore they are so."^ 

Fully conscious of human limitations, he comes to his 
general conviction about life in these words, 

lC.B.,p.l43. 

—66— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

'•At present, we know ourselves only in part, and only in 
part can we interpret ourselves in our mysterious and Divine 
mechanism."'^ 

Again he says, 

"We may thank God that we have minds so large, so com- 
prehensive, that the earth and all its attributes, can not fill them, 
and thank Him, too, because there is nothing finite, which can 
satisfy the infinite ; yet as we are, we can only take a very limited 
view of objects, and our powers of comprehension and appre- 
ciation, are comparatively impotent."^ 

Such an unassuming position he sustained through 
Hfe. Many times he was obliged, as a consequence of 
this law of development, to change and correct his views. 
He clearly states his attitude, 

"I am, on all subjects, open to conviction, and even desirous 
to receive larger measures of light; and more than once, when 
in debate, I have been convicted of the truth and force of the 
argument of an opponent"^ 

Again he says, 

"We have been taught that we are liable to err; we candidly 
acknowledge that we have changed our views on many subjects, 
and that our views have changed our practice. If it be a 
crime to change our views and our practice in religious con- 
cerns, we must certainly plead guilty. If it be a humiliating 
thing to say we have been wrong in our belief and practice, we 
must abase ourselves thus far. We were once trained and 
disciplined in the popular religion, and were then steady and 
uniform in one course for a time. But the foundations of our 
assent to and accordance with the popular religion was de- 

1 Mill. Har. 1860, p. 62. 2 Evidences, p. 105. 3 Evidences, p. 14. 

—67— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

stroyed, and down came the edifice about our ears. We are 
thankful that we were not buried in the ruins."^ 

No one can question but that such an attitude is a 
mark of strength of mind and loyalty of will. Mr. 
Campbell, like Emerson, would preach today what he 
believed to be truth, and if tomorrow he changed his 
conception as to the truth of things, he would then let 
go the old and preach the new. 

At the commencement of his career he took this Urm 
stand. On the one hand, he was certain of the limits of 
human knowledge, and conscious of its relativity; on 
the other hand, he believed in truth and progress. Hence, 
his never-ceasing demand was, "Let there be Light"; 
his challenge to the age, "What is truth?" Clad in this 
armor he unflinchingly met his age and grappled with it. 
He shunned darkness. His constant cry was, **More 
Light." He hated falsehood and sham with all the bit- 
terness of a Carlyle. H]e must have truth. Nor will 
the findings of others satisfy him as to the reality of 
truth. He says, 

"Truth (not who says so) is my sole object."^ 

Again, 

"The great question with every man's conscience is, or should 
be, 'What is truth?' Not, have any of the scribes or rulers of 
the people believed it? Every man's eternal all, as well as his 
present comfort, depends upon what answer he is able to give 
to the question Pilate of old (John 18:38) proposed to Christ, 
without waiting for a reply ."^ 

1 C. B., p. 3. 2 c. B., p. 228. 3 i,ec. on I^aw, Hist. Doc., p. 223. 

—68— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Some in his day believed that the Bible was the only 
fount of truth. To them truth was truth because it was 
found in the Bible. They failed to reach the fact that it 
was in the Bible because it was true. He holding a dif- 
ferent criterion for truth, i. e., truth is truth because of 
its agreement with reality, looked everywhere in God's 
whole universe for truth. So he says, 

"Truth is truth, wherever found, in the street or in a temple-^ 
in a cellar, or in a mountain."^ 

Speaking of the temper of mind of himself and his 
co-laborers, he says they 

"Set out determined to sacrifice everything to truth, and fol- 
low her wherever she might lead the way."^ 

So intense is his regard for truth that he passionately 
cries out: 

"I desire not victory but truth. The triumph of truth is eter- 
nal. The triumph of error is but for a moment."^ 

Neither was he at all troubled over the outcome of 
such an attitude of free, individual investigation. In fact, 
in opposition to ignorance and superstition, this was the 
only true stand to take. He says : 

"The only safe course, in this perilous age, is, to take noth- 
ing upon trust, but to examine for ourselves, and *to bring all 
things to the test.' 'But if any man will be ignorant, let him be 
ignorant/ "^ 

In the ultimate success of truth he was most optimistic. 
He says: 

1 I^t. on Pent., p. 301. 2 Ch. Sys., p. 83. 3 Mill. Har. 1858, p. 473* 

4 Hist. Doc., p. 222. 
—69— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"Truth fairly presented, and enforced by the good example 
of its advocates, has ever triumphed, and will continue to triumph 
till the victory is complete."-^ 

So confidently does he believe in the power of truth to 
win that he grows eloquent in its consideration. He says : 

y "While, in this age of invention, the winds and the waves, 

the rivers and the deserts, the mountains and the valleys are 
made to yield to scientific and mechanical skill; while the human 
mind is bursting through the shackles and restraints of a false phi- 
losophy, and developing the marvelous extent of its powers, it 
is not to be supposed strange and unaccountable that the moral 
and religious systems of antiquity should be submitted to the 
scrutiny of enlightened intellects, and that men of reflection and 
independence would dare to explore the creeds and the rubrics 
of ages of less Hght and more superstition. Truth has nothing 
to fear from investigation. It dreads not the light of science, 
nor shuns the scrutiny of the most prying inquiry. Like one 
conscious of spotless innocence and uncontaminated purity, it 
challenges the fullest, the ablest, and the boldest examination. 
On the other hand, error, as if aware of its flimsy pretensions 
and of the veil which conceals its deformity, flies from the torch 
of reason, and dares not approach the tribunal of impartial in- 
^ quiry. She hides herself in the fastnesses of remote antiquity, 
and garrisons herself in the fortifications erected by those she 
honors with the title of 'the Fathers.' When she dares to visit 
the temples of human resort, she attires herself in the attractions 
of popular applause, and piques herself upon the number, in- 
fluence, and respectability of her admirers. But with all her 
blandishments, she is an impudent imposter, and is doomed to 
destruction with all her worshippers. But Truth, immortal 
Truth! the first born of Heaven! by the indisputable rights of 
primogeniture, shall inherit all things, and leave her antagonist, 

1 C. B., p. 22S. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Error, to languish forever in the everlasting shame and contempt 
of perfect and universal exposure. To Truth eternal and immor- 
tal, the wise and good will pay all homage and respect. Upon 
no altar will they offer her as a victim; hut at her shrine will 
sacrifice everything."^ 

In his day many were trying to stay the rising tide of 
19th Century thought and investigation. They sought to 
keep men within the old channels of thought and custom. 
They feared the outcome of growing wise. As to this 
tendency he says : 

"But to set the mind abroach, to take off every restraint but 
that of moral law, to encourage free inquiry, especially in an 
age of comparative ignorance and superstition both in things 
political, religious and literary, is always a hazardous experiment. 
In such a revolution as must necessarily ensue, not only the in- 
stitutions of false philosophy, unequal policy and arbitrary legis- 
lation, but also the altars, the temples, and the ordinances of 
reason and truth and justice, may be blended together in one 
promiscuous ruin. Who can arrest the progress of free in- 
quiry? What human spirit can ride upon this whirlwind and 
direct this storm? What philosopher or sage can, with effect, 
say, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; and here shall 
your investigation cease*? Experience says it is much easier 
to communicate the spark than to arrest the flame. Still, how- 
ever, we have this consolation that truth is in its own nature in- 
destructible, and that however for a time it may be hid among 
the rubbish of human tradition, or buried in the wreck of revo- 
lutions and counter-revolutions in human affairs, it will ulti- 
mately gain the ascendant and command not only the admiration 
but the homage of all mankind. * * * Happy is it, then, 
for the general interests of all science and of all society, that 

1 C. B., 461. 

—71— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

when men begin to think and reason and decide for themselves 
on any one subject, unrestrained by the proscriptions and unawed 
by the authority of past ages, it is not within their own power, 
nor within the grasp of any extrinsic authority on earth, to re- 
strain their speculations, or to confine them to that one subject, 
whatever it may be, which happened first to arouse their minds 
from repose of unthinking acquiescence and to break the spell of 
implicit resignation to the supposed superior wisdom of the re- 
puted sages of ancient times."^ 

His contentions are not unlike those of Kant: "Our 
age is, in every sense of the word, the age of criticism, 
and everything must submit to it. Religion on the strength 
of its sanctity, and law, on the strength of its majesty, 
try to withdraw themselves from it ; but by so doing they 
arouse just suspicions, and cannot claim that sincere re- 
spect which reason pays to those only who have been able 
to stand its free, open examination." 

Thus, in a day of deep-seated conservatism, in the 
midst of a strong tendency to stationariness to the degree 
of fossilization, Alexander Campbell turned his back upon 
the findings of the past and lined up alongside of liberty 
and progress. The American atmosphere was most con- 
genial to him. He found himself in unison with the 
American ideals of liberty. Possessing the true Ameri- 
can spirit, he became in the ecclesiastical world an urgent 
spokesman and defender of the rights of men to think 
for themselves. 

He felt that he stood upon a broad and solid founda- 
tion in his right to think, investigate, arrive at his own 

1 Add., p. 454. 

—72— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

conclusions, and dissent from the past, if need be. In 
the first place, this right belonged to him as an American 
citizen. He says: 

"Freedom of thought, of speech, and of action on all sub- 
jects — connected with religion — morality and politics are the con- 
stitutional rights and privileges of every citizen of these United 
States. We thank God, from whom all blessings flow, for these 
invaluable American birthrights, privileges, and honors."^ 

"There is nothing more congenial to civil liberty than to en- 
joy an unrestrained, unembargoed liberty of exercising the con- 
science fully upon all subjects respecting religion."^ 

In the second place, he bases his liberality in the pro- 
gram of the Master of all true freedom. He does not 
forget the v^ords of Jesus: "If ye abide in my word, 
then are ye truly my disciples ; and ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free. * * * jf^ 
therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed." He listens to the word of "Paul: "With free- 
dom did Christ set us free. Stand fast, therefore, and 
be not entagled again in a yoke of bondage." Speaking 
of Jesus, he says : 

"He establishes the doctrine of personal liberty, of freedom 
of choice, and of personal responsibility, by commanding every 
man to judge, reason, and act for himself."^ 

In the Christocracy he finds "essentially the spirit of 
liberty, justice and love," since Christ has absolute con- 
trol of the affections of the human heart. So he is able 
to conclude that 

1 Mill. Har. 1860, p. 394. 2 Bapt., p. 409. 3 Bapt., p. 109. 

--73— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"In the Christocracy, therefore, we find the never-failing spring 
of that aversion to ecclesiastical dogmatism which has given to 
pure Protestantism its noble characteristics of mental independ- 
ence, sense of equal rights, and love of perfect freedom. If 
the Son of God emancipate a man, he is free indeed."^ 

Finally, he finds his right for personal freedom bound 
up in the proscriptions of the Christian Church, which in 
its doctrine recognizes the fact of man's relation to God; 
that man is God's child and is by nature accountable to 
his Father. Therefore he is able to conclude as regards 
the true church that, 

"The Christian church is the only perfect cradle of human 
liberty, as it is the only proper school of equal rights and im- 
munities on earth. It commands every man to think, speak, 
and act for himself. * * * The great doctrine of a personal 
accountability is made the foundation of personal liberty. It 
teaches that every man shall give an account of himself to God. 
And as there shall be no proxies in the future and eternal judg- 
ment, so there must be none in Christ's Kingdom on earth. From 
these sublime facts spring all rational liberty of thought and ac- 
tion on the greatest choice which man can make; whom he shall 
acknowledge, love, and serve God, and in what way and manner 
he shall best serve him. * * * j^q religion preached on earth 
is so favorable to human liberty as the Christian. Indeed, it 
prescribes the only rational foundation of liberty ever submitted 
to the human understanding. This it does by making every 
man's destiny forever depend upon his own choice. If he must 
be judged for himself, he must think and choose for himself— 
is as sound logic, as sound theology, as was ever preached."^ 

Mr. Campbell, in his demand for a right to free inves- 
tigation, was feeling what Harold Hoffding felt when he 

1 Add., p. 498. 2 Bapt. p. llOf. 

—74— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

said '} "To make religion a problem may be offensive to 
many. But thought, when it is once awakened, must have 
the right to investigate everything, and only thought itself 
can draw the bounds to thought. Who else should do 
this? He who has espied no problem has naturally no 
reason to think; but such a one has no reason to keep 
others from thinking. Whoever fears the loss of his 
spiritual house of refuge, let him keep away. No one 
wishes to rob a poor man of his only lamb — then the poor 
man may not needlessly drive it along the crowded thor- 
oughfare, and demand that traffic shall stop on his ac- 
count. Moreover, experience shows that it is the rams 
rather than the lambs which loudly proclaim, in season, 
and especially out of season, that they are offended and 
scandalized. It is not so much the really spiritually poor 
as it is the obstinate and blustering ecclesiasts who raise 
such a clamor when free inquiry enters upon its rights 
to bestir itself in the religions, as in every other region." 

1 The Fidelity of the Christian Religion (Foster), p. 15. 



-^S— 



CHAPTER IV. 
Appreciation of Great Personalities. 



Beyond all wealth, honor or even health, is the attachment 
we form to noble souls, because to become one with the good, 
generous and true, is to become, in a measure, good, generous 
and true ourselves. — Thomas Arnold. 

They never know who only know alone. 
Who deeply knows must also deeply feel. 

—Wilfred Campbell. 

Each man gets out of the world of men the rebound, the in- 
crease and the development of what he brings there. — Phillips 
Brooks, 

Whence come our greatest convictions, our deepest faiths? 
From personal associations. Personal contact and impression 
of character count more here than all arguments. You find 
yourself responding like a vibrating chord to the note of your 
friend. His faith and life become the firmest ground for yours. 
You catch his conviction, his spirit. It may well be a relief to 
a conscientious but growing teacher, that it is not a man's indi- 
vidual propositions, so much as the general trend of his thinking, 
his spirit, his tone, his atmosphere, which remains with others. 
This total result now becomes in them, too, a living germ, going 
on to grow in them as in him. It is not propositions, not defini- 
tions, not demonstrations, that give inspiration, but the touch of 
life. — Henry Churchill King, Rational Living, p. 250. 



-78- 



CHAPTER IV. 

APPRECIATION OE GREAT PERSONAEITIES. 

It would be doing Mr. Campbell a great injustice to 
say that he made an entire break with the past. In the 
incoming of the new many have committed the error of 
so utterly breaking with the past as to have no secure 
foundation for the new. Such an extreme found them 
finally out on the rolling waves without chart or compass. 
Mr. Campbell did not commit himself to any such ex- 
treme. On the contrary, his Hue culture of both mind and 
heart granted him an appreciation of the great person- 
alities of history. He never despised the heritage of the 
past, nor did he feel, with all his love for progress, that 
there were no constant elements coming down out of the 
past. He rather sought to know the true significance of 
these constants which had come through the great per- 
sonalities of history. That which was so abhorrent to 
him was the abuse and misuse of the past which rendered 
men incapable of thinking for themselves. He would 
have men everywhere and always stand out, upon their 
own individuality, and in their own times, instead of 
being appendages to others and to other ages. Freeing 
himself from that narrowness which so often affects 
small minds, that littleness which can see nothing good 
and true in those who differ from them, he entered into 

—79- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

sympathetic appreciation of the great thinkers, of not 
only his own time, but all ages. 

But, with him, the significance of these men was not 
in their being masters whom he should slavishly follow, 
but rather in their being personalities whose touch would 
enable him to do his own thinking and acting; and all 
the better could he do this since their genius had lifted 
him to the heights. 

Few theologians of Mr. Campbeirs day would have 
given such a liberal thinker as Mr. Coleridge such warm 
words of praise as he did when he said : 

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge was not merely a poet and a phil- 
osopher of the highest order, but, by concession, the most talented 
theologian in the English Church, of his day. Some of the Lon- 
don reviews have pronounced him. the greatest theologian in the 
world, of the first quarter of the present century. That he was a 
man of the most philosophic and discriminating mind, as well as 
of prodigious theological attainments, no one who has read his 
various works, and especially his *Aid to Reflection,' can reason- 
ably doubt."* 

In speaking of a saying of Luther's, he says : 

"We agree with him in this as well as in many other sentiments. 
Emerging from the smoke of the great city of mystical Babylon, 
he saw as clearly and as far into these matters as any other per- 
son could in such a hazy atmosphere. Many of his views only 
require to be carried out to their legitimate issue, and, we should 
have the ancient gospel restored."" 

Of the reformers in general he says : 

\ Ch. Sys., p. 437. 2 Ch. Sys., p. 191. 

—80— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"Time, that great arbiter of human actions, that great revealer 
of secrets, has long decided that all the reformers of the Papacy 
have been public benefactors. And thus the Potestant Reforma- 
tion is proved to have been one of the most splendid eras in the 
history of the world, and must long be regarded by the philoso- 
pher and the philanthropist as one of the most gracious interpo- 
sitions in behalf of the whole human race. * * We Americans 
owe our national privileges and our civil liberties to the Protestant 
Reformation. They achieved not only an imperishable fame for 
themselves, but a rich legacy for their posterity. When we con- 
trast the present state of these United States with Spanish 
America and the condition of the English nation with that of 
Spain, Portugal and Italy, we begin to appreciate how much we 
are indebted to the intelligence, faith and courage of Martin LrU- 
ther, and his heroic associates in that glorious reformation. * * 
Reformation, however, became the order of the day; and this 
assuredly, was a great matter, however it may have been man- 
aged. It was a revolution, and revolutions seldom move back- 
ward. The example that Luther set was of more value than all 
the achievements of Charles V., or the literary and moral labors 
of his distinguished contemporary, the erudite Erasmus."^ 

In a consideration of Bacon, Locke, Newton, Milton, 
Young, Shakespeare, Wilberforce, and others who have 
graced the world with word and deed, he declares : 

"These great revealers and masters of nature have been found 
in hosts among the Anglo-Saxon race, and almost exclusively 
among them. These are the great benefactors of man — the great 
reformers of the world. They have transformed the rugged hills 
and mountains into Sharon and Carmel; they have made 'the 
wilderness and the solitary place glad,' and have compelled the 
desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose.* "* 

1 Ch. Sys., p. 3, 4. 2 Add., p. 41, 

(6) — 8l— 



^Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

In his estimate of the world's great benefactors, he 
finds: 

"Two illustrious categories — the great in reason, and the great 
in fancy. Conception and comparison distinguish the former — im- 
agination and invention the latter. These are the men of genius 
— these the men of talent. Men of genius soar on eagles' pin- 
ions to worlds of fancy; while men of talent, Atlas-like, stand 
under the real world. The loftier regions of fiction and romance 
delight the former, while the realties of earth and its mighty 
destinies engross the attention and command the energies of the 
latter. Men of genius create new worlds — men of talent carry 
them. Strength (for so talentum, from talao, would seem to 
indicate) characterizes the one; while activity and celerity of 
movement distinguish the operations of the other. While, then, 
invention is the boast of genius, execution is the glory of talent. 
Combined, they make the earth's great ones; and, leagued with 
virtue, constitute the real nobility of human nature. 

"Example, however, is always more intelligible, and generally 
more eloquent than definition. We shall then summon its aid. 
Genius, we have said, is distinguished by invention, creation, 
origination; talent by effort, enterprise and great achievements. 
Energy is prime minister to talent; the love of admiration, to 
genius. 

"Homer excelled in genius; Virgil in talent; Shakespeare and 
Milton in both. In the fine arts of painting, sculpture and music, 
as well as in poetry, oratory, and even in the useful arts, that hav^ 
contributed to the progress of civilization and comfort, we have 
numerous and happy illustrations of both genius and talent. 
Raphael in his cartoons, Michael Angelo in his frescos, and our 
own Benjamin West in his historical paintings, are par excel- 
lence, models of genius in the department of painting. In sculp- 
ture, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Polydore are as bright as constella- 
tion of genius as Demosthenes, Cicero or Sheridan, in oratory; 

-82— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

or as Milton, Pope or Byron, In poetry. In the useful arts a Ful- 
ton and an Arkwright afford as fine specimens of genius as a 
Mozart in music, or a Scott in romance. On the other hand, we 
discover in a Butler, a L^uther, a Franklin, a Washington, the 
mighty power of talent; and in a Locke, a Bacon, or a Newton, 
the still superior force of genius and talent combined."^ 

After considering earth's great men of genius and tal- 
ent he speaks of their extensive influence in these words : 

"Eternity alone will develop the wide-spreading and long-con- 
tinued series of good and happy consequences, direct and indirect, 
resulting from their schemes of benevolence and deeds of mercy. 
Their noble influence may be compared in its beginnings to 
the salient fountains of some of earth's grandest rivers, which, 
though not ankle-deep, issuing from beneath a little rock on some 
lofty mountain's brow, after wending its serpentine way for thou- 
sands of miles through many a rich valley and fertile plain, and 
receiving the contributions of numerous tributary streams, finally 
disembogues its deep, broad flood into the ocean, carrying on its 
majestic bosom the products of many climes and the wealth of 
many nations. So in the course of the ages, the labors of the 
more distinguished benefactors of mankind, at first humble and 
circumscribed, yield largely accumulating revenues of glory and 
felicity; and carry down, not only to the remotest times, and to 
the most distant nations, manifold blessings; but occasionally, 
transcending the boundaries of earth and time, they flow into 
eternity itself, carrying home to God and the universe, untold 
multitudes of pure and happy beings."^ 

So appreciative is he of the world's noble souls that 
he zx/ouM bow in reverence in remembrance of them^ He 
says : 

1 Add., p. 78. 2 Add., p. 89. 

—83— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"Could the sons of science, of poetry and philosophy find the 
grave of Homer, of Socrates, of Plato or Archimedes, or stand 
at the tomb of Bacon, of Locke, of Newton, of Shakespeare or 
of Milton — those 'plenipotentiaries of intellect and giants of the 
soul' — what awe and reverence for intellectual greatness would 
possess their minds in the remembrance of the mighty triumphs 
and splendid trophies of their illustrious and wonderful genius."^ 

That God had made the world, set it going, and then 
transcended it, dwelling in some remote region, was for- 
eign to Mr. Campbell's idea of God. The fault he finds 
with the Theists and Deists is that 

"They humanise their God too much; give him too much the 
character of a governor, and too many of the attributes which are 
supposed essential to a good governor; whereas the pure Deists 
make their God rather an indifferent spectator, an uninterested 
observer of the affairs of this life." 

He sees God constantly working in history. Some have 
felt that God's working in the world was a thing of the 
past. They have drawn a sharp line between what is in 
the Bible and what is outside. After the old Jewish fash- 
ion, they have called the one sacred, and the other secu- 
lar. Not only the great characters of the Bible, but the 
great characters of history were seen, by Mr. Campbell, 
to be God's instruments in molding and perfecting the 
world. Nor are they confined to the merely religious, but 
in all the various activities of life men are divine instru- 
ments of God's hand, prepared by him to further his pur- 
pose and bring it to its great consummation. Relative 
to this he says: 

1 Add., p. 231. 2 Evidences, p. 64. 

-84- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

"It is generally conceded that we have another illustration of 
this feature of the divine government, in the mission of that illus- 
trious champion of liberty — George Washington. He was raised 
up as was Moses, though he did not have assigned to him the 
destiny of a people so great in their relation to God and to the 
universe. Still the influence of his achievements has been felt 
throughout the realms of civilization, and the ultimate end of 
his mission no one knows. The great problems in human gov- 
ernment growing out of his career, are not yet solved — not yet 
developed."^ 

In like manner he speaks of the Puritans : 

'The Mayflower ferried over the Atlantic the seeds gathered 
from the early harvests, the choicest first fruits of European 
Protestantism. Brought directly from Old England, they were 
planted in New England. The soil and climate, however rugged 
for the germs of earth, were most fertile and happy for the new 
souls, and, consequently, rich harvests rewarded the labors of 
the puritanic husbandmen. God sent them to a new world, that 
they might institute, under the most favorable circumstances, new 
political and ecclesiastic institutions. Such, most assuredly, was 
their divine mission."^ 

Although Mr. Campbell sacredly regarded the great 
personalities of history as God's noblemen, and reserved 
a large place in his heart for them, he did not allows him- 
self to become their slave, in thinking their thoughts. 
He tells us how much and in what way he is indebted 
to various thinkers. He says : 

"I was, some fourteen years ago, a great admirer of the works 
of John Newton. I read them with great delight, and I still 
love the author and admire many of his sentiments. He was 

1 I^ct. on pent., p. 176. 2 Add., p. 169. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

not a staunch Episcopalian, though he died in that connection. 
In an apology to a friend for his departure from the tenets of 
that sect in some instances, he said, 'Whensoever he found a 
pretty feather in any bird, he endeavored to attach it to his own 
plumage, and, although he had become a very speckled bird, so 
much so that no one of any one species would altogether own him 
as belonging to them, he flattered himself that he was the pret- 
tiest bird among them.* From that time to this I have been 
looking for pretty feathers, and I have become more speckled 
than Newton of Olney ; but whether I have as good taste in the 
selection, must be decided by connoisseurs in ornithology. * * * 
"While I acknowledge myself a debtor to Glass, Sandeman, 
Harvey, Cudworth, Fuller and McLean; as much as to Luther, 
Calvin and John Wesley, I candidly and unequivocally avow that 
I do not believe that any one of them had clear and consistent 
views of the Christian religion as a whole. Some of them, no 
doubt, had clear and correct views of some of its truths, nay, of 
many of them, but they were impeded in their inquiries by a false 
philosophy and metaphysics, which fettered their own under- 
standing in some of the plainest things * * * While I thus 
acknowledge myself a debtor to those persons, I must say that 
the debt in most instances is a very small one. I am indebted, 
upon the whole, as much to their errors as to their virtues, for 
these have been to me as beacons to the mariner, who might 
otherwise have run upon the rocks and shoals, * * * though 
in some instances, I have been edified and instructed by their 
labors."^ 

He further states that for tke past ten years he had not 
looked into their books, but had confined himself to the 
Bible, which had become to him "a book entirely new."' 
Nor had he imbibed the ideas of his father, whom he con- 
sidered wise and capable. On the contrary, he had de- 

f C. B., p. 229. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

bated and reasoned more with him than witli any other 
man. He tlien states his unique position in these words : 

"I call no man ftiaster upon the earth, * * * j have been 
so long disciplined in the school of free inquiry that, if I know my 
own mind, there is not a man upon the earth whose authority 
can influence me, any farther than he comes with the authority 
of evidence, reason and truth. To arrive at this state of mind 
is the result of many experiments and efforts; and to me has 
been arduous beyond expression. I have endeavored to read the 
Scriptures as though no one had read them before me ; and I am 
as much on my guard against reading them today, through the 
medium of my own views yesterday, or a week ago, as I an; 
against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or sys- 
tem, whatever.'^' 

In this, three dominant characteristics of Mr, Camp- 
bell's type of mind are evident. First, that authority, and 
that only, which is able to submit itself to his own per- 
sonal investigation, has right of way with him. Secondly, 
this position cost him great mental struggle. Thirdly, he 
recognizes the progressive nature of revelation. Although 
the revelation of God may be fixed in type and ink, the 
mind which comes to it, growing from day to day, is pro- 
gressive and must understand it from the mind's ad- 
vanced and perfect state, rather than from some unma- 
tured state which it has left behind in its development. 
For a complete revelation of God, there must be not only 
the record of how God gradually unfolded himself in the 
prophets to the fathers, culminating in the fullness of his 
true character in his Son, but there must be the growing, 

lC.B.,p.229. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

personal mind of man, to lay hold of this sublime revela- 
tion of God, understand it, appreciate it, respond to it, 
and enforce it in life. 

We have been considering the man who came to Amer- 
ica at the beginning of the 19th Century. We have heard 
his voice. We have felt the touch of his spirit. His ideas 
of liberty and progress are before us. Do v^e estimate 
him to be a man needed by the times? Should the 19th 
Century have made room for him and given him a can- 
did hearing? Judging from the reception he met as he 
commenced his life's task, we would answer in the nega- 
tive. But later times often reverse the verdict of former 
times. The centuries often correct the judgment of the 
hours. Did a man of his spirit and attitude as he faced 
the world fit into the times? He possessed in a large 
degree a love for freedom and a spirit of liberty which 
was intense. His faith in progress and his admiration 
for truth towered into a splendid optimism. His exten- 
sive view of things made him ever conscious of human 
limits and instead of becoming a bigot he grew modestly 
humble. In his love for the great personalities of his- 
tory he never lost his balance so as to destroy his own 
individuality or to become a leaner upon others. Did the 
19th Century require such a man? We may be able to 
pass a wiser judgment after a consideration of the times, 
after we learn how he adjusted himself to the problem of 
his day. It may be that General Robert E. Lee spoke a 
noble truth when he said: "If I were asked to select 
a representative of the human race to the inhabitants of 

—8a— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the other spheres in our universe, of all the men I have 
ever known I would select Alexander Campbell; then I 
know they would have a high impression of what our 
humanity is like."^ 

1 Cen, Camp Fare, p. SO. 



^89— 






CHAPTER V. 
A New Voice in Protestantism. 



But while we thus ape our fathers, we forget that their great- 
ness consisted in the fact that they aped no one. — Mazzini. 

The old emphasis of man-made statements and creeds is gone. 
John Huss and John Calvin, John Wesley and Jonathan Ed- 
wards, those sons of thunder, like the first John in his first es- 
tate, have been relegated to their place as great men, but have 
ceased to eclipse the name of Jesus Christ. All these have be- 
come mere candles while the teacher of Bethlehem and Calvary 
stands forth, the one untroubled sun. — (The Fortune of the Re- 
public)— Hillis, 1906. 

And as thus age after age they wrangle, with their eyes turned 
away from the light, the world goes on to larger and larger 
knowledge in spite of them, and does not lose its faith, for all 
these darkeners of counsel may say. As in the roaring loom of 
Time the endless web of events is woven, each strand shall make 
more and more clearly visible the living garment of God. — (The 
Idea of God) — Fiske. 

But that rare quality, that national dream, 
That lies behind this genius at its core, 

Which gave it vision, utterance; evermore. 
It will be with us, as those stars that gleam. 

Eternal, hid behind the lights of day, 
A people's best, that may not pass away, 

—Wilfred Campbell. 



=^92^ 



CHAPTER V. 
A NEW VOICE IN PROTESTANTISM. 

The 19th Century was unique in religious tendencies. 
The Revival of Learning and the Reformation which 
followed, the two creators of the revolution, which ef- 
fected a disturbance in every department and condition 
of life, were in the past. Yet, they had generated a tem- 
per of mind and a spirit of investigation which was still 
going on. The tendency with which we have at present 
to do is that in the Protestant Reformation which tended 
to crystallization. It was thought that the reformers had 
completed their work, whereas they had only announced 
principles for further development. This has ever been 
the real danger in reform, this recognition of complete- 
ness which arrests all further progress. 

The religious world had become a world of sects ; each 
rallying around its peculiar standard and making war- 
fare upon all the rest who differed from its chosen tenets. 
This was the condition that greeted Mr. Campbell as he 
found himself upon the field of action in the New World. 
It is true that the "flowers of freedom" were blooming, 
but too often they were blooming in the sky. Especially 
was this true in the realm of religion. In the world of 
ideas they were found in profusion, while they were rare 
in the fields of practicality. 

—93— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Mr. Campbell's progressive nature at once rebelled"" 
he had not so learned Protestantism. He lost no time in 
scenting the real difficulty and at once announced him- 
self as the herald of a true Protestantism. Thus, at the 
beginning of the 19th century in America A New Voice 
Was Heard in Protestantism. His work began in a pro- 
test. Not a protest against the mighty achievements of 
the past reformers, but a protest against the church of 
the day in not carrying out to their logical end the car- 
dinal principles of the Protestant reformation. It was a 
protest against narrowness, as it was a protest against 
stationariness. It became a challenge for liberty, the 
foundation plank in Protestantism, 

Nor did he feel any disgrace in posing as a protester. 
On the contrary, he felt the dignity of the situation. He 
says : 

"There is a nobility, a moral grandeur of soul, in saying, 7 
protest against such a law or statute. To protest innocence is 
Bometimes just and. necessary. To protest against political 
tyranny, is often expedient; to protest against religious usurpa- 
tion and ecclesiastic despotism, cap* the climax of human nobility 
and grandeur. And none but Heaven's own noble men can, 
ex animo, make such a sublime protestation, "i 

He makes clear his conception of Protestantism in 
these words, 

♦ • But in speaking of Protestantism we speak not of a pretend- 
ed Protestantism, but of a true, real and unsophisticated Protest- 
antism — and what is Protestantism but a solemn negation of all 

1 Add., p. 171. 

—94— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

human dictation and usurpation over men's understanding, con- 
science and affections ; over his personal Hberty of thought, of 
speech and of action, in reference to each and every thing per- 
taining to himself, his fellows, his God and his Redeemer? 
Education, religion, morals and politics are, therefore, the field 
and realms over which Protestantism, de jure divino, presides. 
* * * It is not possible, or, in other words, it is not in human 
nature, to love liberty, freedom of thought, of speech and of 
action, in the state, and to hate it in the church ; or to love it 
in the church and to hate it in the state. The love of liberty is 
a law or principle as uniform and immutable as the law of 
gravity, I mean liberty — rational, moral, social liberty; not 
licentiousness, recklessness, lawlessness ; I mean not lust nor pas- 
sion, the love of plunder and robbery. It is a moral principle, 
founded upon the perception and approbation of justice and 
humanity."^ 

So fundamental is this idea to him that he continues, 

"The very word Protestant implies thought, examination, dis- 
sent and self-reliance. Who protests without reflection, com- 
parison, deduction, and some degree of mental independence, as 
well as of self-reliance? These, too, are verily the elements of 
all human greatness, of all comparative excellence. The 
Protestant Reformation, notwithstanding all that can be said 
against it, was the regeneration of literature, science, art, poli- 
tics, trade, commerce, agriculture. Hence, the more Protestant a 
people, the more elevated in all the elements of modern civiliza- 
tion, self-thinking — pardon the anomalous expression, for there 
are millions who possess not the art or mystery of self-thinking; 
when they think, their minds are only listening to some other 
thinking, speaking or moving within them — I say Self -Thinking 
and Self-Reliance are the two main elements of personal, social, 
national greatness and goodness. These are the pillars of true re- 

1 Add., pp. 171,173. 

—95— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

ligion, true learning, true science, true prosperity, true great- 
ness. By self-thinking and self-reliance I do not mean con- 
fidence in the flesh, pride, self-conceit; I mean the confident ap- 
plication of our minds to the means of intellectual, moral, po- 
litical and religious improvement, in the hope of improving our- 
selves and our condition. * * * 

"Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, mental independence, 
self-thinking, self-relying, give to Protestant communities a 
spirit, a character, and elevation, that deeply imprint themselves 
on all the products of their mind, on all the labors of their 
hands. * * * 

. "They imprison no one for affirming that stars do not fall; 
that the earth moves. They exile no one for thinking that there 
may yet be a new continent, that the number of worlds is in- 
calculable, or that the Pope may err. They put no one to tor- 
ture or to death for thinking for himself on religion, science or 
the arts; therefore, they continually progress, and leave far in 
the distance behind those who allow or license one man to think 
for millions, and sternly command acquiescence in his dogmas."^ 

This right to think for one's self is so revolutionary 
in its effects that Mr. Campbell recognizes in it the germ 
of the revolutionary changes which followed the Refor- 
mation. He says, 

"If, in accordance with the philosophy of things, we could trace 
effects from their immediate to their remote causes, it is pre- 
sumed that we would find the momentous changes already accom- 
plished in English society, whether in the Old World or in the 
New, to be the legitimate consequence of a single maxim, con- 
secrated into a rule of action, both by the precept and the ex- 
ample of the master-spirit of the Protestant Reformation. That 
maxim is, 'Man by nature is, and of right ought to be, a think- 
ing being! Hence, it is decreed that, as a matter of policy, 

1 Add., p. Z3, 

—96— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of morality and of religion, he ought not only to think, but to 
think for himself. * -t * ^q ^j^g inculcation of this obliga- 
tion, more than to any other precept in the religious or moral 
code, was Martin Luther indebted for that eminent success 
which elevated him to the highest niche in the temple consecrated 
to the memory of European and American benefactors. 

"Nor is the day far distant, in our anticipation of the ap- 
proaching future, when the philosophic historian, in his attempts 
to trace to its proper cause the general superiority of that por- 
tion of our race which speaks the English tongue, in whatever 
land, under whatever sky it may happen to have its being, will 
find it supremely, if not exclusively, in the single fact that the 
English nation first adopted the Luthern creed of thinking, speak- 
ing and writing without restraint on every subject of importance 
to the individual and to society. * * * 

"Hence, the impetus given to the mind by the Protestant 
Reformation extends into every science, into every art, into all 
the business of life, and continues, with increased and increasing 
energy to consume and waste the influence of every existing in- 
stitution, law and custom not founded upon eternal truth and 
the immutable and invincible nature of things."^ 

It was not, therefore, against the reformers that Mr. 
Campbell protested. In them he finds the heralds of a 
new era of liberty and freedom. His protest was directed 
to the failure to carry out what they begun. With this 
staying of the Protestant principles, in speaking of Lu- 
ther, he says, 

"But unfortunately, at his death, there was no Joshua to lead 
the people, who rallied under the banners of the Bible, out of the 
wilderness in which Luther died. His tenets were soon con- 
verted into a new state religion; and the spirit of Reformation 

1 Add., p. 453. 

C7) —97— 



Alexander Campbell- and Christian Liberty. 

which he excited and inspired was soon quenched by the broils 
and feuds of the Protestant princes, and the collision of rival 
political interests, both on the continent and in the islands of 
Europe * * * A secret lust in the bosoms of Protestants for 
ecclesiastical power and patronage worked in the members of 
the Protestant Popes, who gradually assimilated the new church 
to the old. Creeds and manuals, synods and councils, soon 
shackled the minds of men, and the spirit of reformation grad- 
ually forsook the Protestant church, or was supplanted by the 
spirit of the world. * * * 

"Calvin renewed the speculative theology of Saint Augustine, 
and Geneva in a few years became the Alexandria of modern 
Europe. The power of religion was soon merged in debates 
about forms and ceremonies, in speculative strifes of opinion, 
and in fierce debates about the political and religious right of 
burning heretics. Still, however, in all these collisions much light 
was elicited. * * * 

"After the Protestants had debated their own principles with 
one another, till they lost all brotherly affection, and would as 
soon have 'communed in the sacrament' with the Catholics as 
with one another; speculative abstracts of Christian Platonism, 
the sublime mysteries of Egyptian theology, became alternately 
the bond of union and the apple of discord, among the fathers and 
friends of the reformation."^ 

Not only does Mr. Campbell see in Protestantism 
the unprogressive state of fixity to be its death warrant, 
but he -finds Protestantism fundamentally at fault in its 
point of departure. It began at the wrong place. He 

says : 

A reformation of Popery was attempted in Europe full three 
centuries ago. It ended in a Protestant hierarchy, and swarms 
of dissenters. * * * None of these has begun at the right 

1 Ch. Sys., pp. 3, 4. 

—98-. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

place. All of them retain in their bosom, in their ecclesiastic or- 
ganization, worship, doctrines and observances, various relics of 
Popery. They are, at best, but a reformation of Popery, and 
only reformation in part. * * * 

"Living then, as we do, in the midst of such abortive efforts 
art reformation, seeing the progress of error, and regretting the 
feeble and slow advances of the gospel upon even the outposts of 
error, infidelity, and abounding iniquity, we are constrained to 
inquire, if anything can be done; and if anything, what it should 
be, and how attempted?"^ 

He then points out how little was accomplished under 
these efforts, and feels that to rally under the old ban- 
ners is but to fight the old battles over again. "These 
have all been tried." The capital mistake in them all is 
that they each emphasized and built around certain pe- 
culiar truths to the neglect of catholic ones. He says, 

"Protestant parties are all founded upon Protestant peculiar- 
ities. Indeed, there is but one radical and distinctive idea in any 
one of them. That is, their center of attraction and of radia- 
tion. * * * They build on what is peculiar, and then, in 
effect, undervalue that which is common to them all."^ 

He then stakes out such broad ground as this: 

"Now, it appears to us, the things which are most commonly 
believed are most valuable, certainly much more valuable than 
any one of the partisan peculiarities. * * * We conclude, 
then, that a party founded on all that is commonly received by 
Romanists, Greeks and Protestants, and nothing more, would not 
only be a new party, one entirely new, but incomparably more 
rational, and certainly more scriptural than any of them."* 

1 Bapt., p. 15. 3 Bapt., p. 17. 3 ibid., p. 17. 

—99— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

In getting a comprehensive grasp of the catholic truths 
thus held, he is directed back to Christ, for he finds them 
centering about him and his salvation. Therefore he is 
able to propose an "Bvangelical Reformation" by a re- 
turny a restoration of Jesus Christ and his gospel. 

Such did Mr, Campbell find the condition of his times 
to be. Yet he was not dismayed. On the contrary, he 
said, 

"I stand here as a Protestant. * * * in advocating the 
great cardinal principles of Protestantism I feel that I stand 
upon a rock."^ 

In such circumstances he found his task. In the strict 
sense of the word it was not as a reformer; for as he 
suggests, how can one reform the reformation ? He does 
not feel the need of going back to the fathers. Not the 
speculations of the fathers but the religion of Jesus, he 
observes, is the real need, so he says, 

"Human systems, whether of philosophy or of religion, are 
proper subjects of reformation; but Christianity cannot be re- 
formed. Every attempt to reform Christianity is like an attempt 
to create a new sun, or to change the revolution of the Heavenly 
bodies — unprofitable and vain. In a word, we have had reforma- 
tions enough." 

Again, he comes to the gist of the whole question as 
he says, 

"'To reform the Reformation' is, indeed, a hard matter — and 
why? Because many think the Reformation was complete. 
* * * The greatest moral calamity that has befallen the 

1 D. on R. C. R., p. 49. 

—100— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Protestants is this, that they imagined the Reformation was fin- 
ished when Luther and Calvin died." 

With Mr. Campbell a true Protestantism was a pro- 
gressive affair, not going back to the fathers to reform 
what had been formed by them. In this fact, that Protest- 
antism had become fixed and stationary while it was by 
right and nature progressive, Mr. Campbell found his 
point of departure for his whole life's work. He was to 
contend for a true Protestantism, and, as a free being, 
he reserved for himself the right to return to the orig- 
inal source. 

Says Prof. Brown^: "Protestantism stands before all 
things for a new spirit; a new conception of the entire 
relation between God and man. It is a relation of free- 
dom which gives each man a right to go back for him- 
self to the source of divine revelation, and, in the Hght 
of that which he there finds, to judge all later utterances 
of the church." 

Mr. Campbell availing himself of this privilege made 
a return not to the fathers, but beyond the fathers * * * 
"Back to Christ." Thus, then, there was in America, at 
the beginning of the 19th Century, a young man * * * 
a new voice in Protestantism, calling for a return to the 
Christ. 

In speaking of the founder of the Christian religion, he 
says, 

"The lives or conduct of his disciples may be reformed, but his 
religion can not. The religion of Rome, or England, or of Scot- 

1 Christian Theol. in OuUine, p. 19. 

—101— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

land, may be reformed, but the religion of Jesus never can. 
When we have found ourselves out of the way, we may seek for 
the ancient paths, but we are not at liberty to invent paths for our 
own feet. We should return to the Lord." 

Thenceforth this cry "Return * * * restore the ancient 
order of things" rang down through the 19th century 
with no uncertain note. He defines clearly what he 
means by restoration in these words, 

"To bring the societies of Christians up to the New Testa- 
ment is just to bring the disciples individually and collectively to 
walk in the faith, and in the commandments of the Lord and 
Savior, as presented in that blessed volume; and this is to re- 
store the ancient order of things.^ 

The old watch-word of the reformation, "The Bible, 
and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestantism," was 
renewed by Mr. Campbell in opposition to the opinions 
and speculations of men. He pleaded for a restored Bible 
that he might have a restored Christ. This became his 
life labor in which he never faltered, grew weary, or 
lost confidence in a victorious outcome. He went forth 
in the spirit of Herrmann's word and fulfilled his idea 
of the true theologian's task.^ "But if we gain a clear in- 
sight into what the Bible ought to be for every Christian, 
namely, the means by which with his own vision he lays 
hold of the person of Jesus, then it is easy to see what 
attitude towards the Christian community must be taken 
up by the theologian called to her service. He must be 
ready to impart to her, without any deduction, the scrip- 

1 C. B., p. 128. 2 Communion with God, p. 10. 

—102— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tural tradition, and must possess the faculty of showing 
the people how they can use this means to reach that one 
end. But, on the other hand, if the ecclesiastical author- 
ities should be in the habit of demanding from such a 
man that he shall 'believe' a sum of doctrines prescribed 
by them, be it ever so small, then they would be guilty of 
a tyranny which ultimately they themselves must feel to 
be useless and barbarous." 

A recent writer in an excellent article in Hasting's 
Dictionary of Christ and His Gospels, p. 161 f, voices 
the true feeling of Mr. Campbell in his longing to go 
back to the fountain source. He says : "That the stream 
of religion flows purer at its fountain-head than its low- 
er reaches is a fact which the study of every historical 
religion confirms. As a religion advances through his- 
tory, it loses something of its idealism and becomes more 
secular, takes up foreign elements, accumulates dog- 
mas and ceremonies, parts with its simplicity and spon- 
taneity, and becomes more and more a human construc- 
tion. And every religious reform has signified a throw- 
ing off of foreign accretions, and a return to the sim- 
plicity and purity of the source. Did not Christ him- 
self represent a reaction from the elaborate legal and cer- 
emonial system of Judaism to the simpler and more eth- 
ical faith of the prophets? The reformation was a re- 
turn to primitive Christianity, but less to Christ than to 
St. Paul and the early disciples." 

So in Mr. Campbell in his demand for a return to the 
ancient landmarks, we see a man going backward. 

—.103— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Queer spectacle for such progressive spirit! But so 
far does he go backwards, and no farther does he go, 
than to the Chief Corner Stone of the Prophets and 
Apostles, that we really find him to be a man going back- 
ward that he may go forward. To those who designate 
the cry "Back to Christ" a "Crab Cry", let it be said, 
that with Mr. Campbell it was not a going back to the 
crabs but far beyond them to the very source of life it- 
self. It becomes often necessary to go back that one may 
go forward. 

Principal Fairbairn expresses Mr. Campbell's senti- 
ments when he says^: "The fathers cannot explain 
Christ, though he can explain the fathers. He is ultimrate, 
but they are derivative ^ ^ ^ This return * * * 
must proceed from the source downwards, and not simply 
be contented to judge the source by what we find far 
down the stream. Above in the fountain there is purity, 
but below in the river impurities that gather as the 
course lengthens and the fields tilled and reaped of men 
are drained into its waters." 

With such temper of mind did Mr. Campbell plead 
for the restoration of the gospel. He would go and find 
it in its simplicity and purity in Jesus himself. As he 
thought, and reasoned, and pleaded the inmost longing 
of his heart ever was, as expressed in Whittier's lines, 

"Our Friend, our Brother and our Lord, 
What may thy service be? 
Nor name, nor form, nor written word. 
But simply following Thee." 

1 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 296. 

—104— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Did Protestantism need such a Voice ? He was a man 
whose deep insight pierced the static and stereotyped 
condition of Protestantism. He was one who beHeved a 
true Protestantism to be progressive. He said in his 
return, let us not go back to the creeds of the fathers 
but to the Bible itself; let us not stop with the fathers 
but return to the Christ. That he was a man deeply 
possessed with the progressive spirit of his times none 
can doubt. If in doubt about his being the one the world 
needed to wrestle with the forces of the day and to con- 
tend for a true Protestantism, put yourself in touch with 
his methods and witness how he adjusted himself to the 
task. Watch the man as he works. What will the New 
Voice in Protestantism speak? We may yet be able to 
say with Robert Owen, of England, Mr. Campbell's op- 
ponent in the debate on infidelity : "The friends of truth, 
on which ever side it may be found, are now more in- 
debted to Mr. Campbell than any other Christian min- 
ister of the present day."^ 

2 Evidences, p. 405. 



—105— 



PART II. 
Liberty and the Bible. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Bible Restored. 



It is amusing to observe that some of our brethren are 
alarmed over this ringing call for a gospel which is informed 
by knowledge of present-day conditions. We are told in cer- 
tain quarters that men who call for such presentation of the 
"present truth" are "attacking the plea." One is tempted to 
wonder what sort of a delicate and sensitive thing this "plea" 
is that it has to be guarded so carefully upon the approach of 
a modern idea. One would imagine that these brethren were 
in fear lest some rude hand might disfigure the "plea" beyond 
recognition with a touch of up-to-dateness. Do they really 
mean to say that they take in the "plea" every night to pro- 
tect it from the frost, or hide it as one would an endangered 
gate on Hallowe'en? 

We can fancy the smile of humor with which one of the 
fathers of this reformation would have read such a lament 
over the effort to present matters in a light adjusted to the 
age. The attacking of traditional and archaic ideas and phrases 
was their certain daily pastime. We can imagine that the 
conservators of orthodoxy felt certain that every belief and 
opinion which was left out over night was sure to be gone 
before morning. The warriors of the first generation of this 
movement delighted in nothing so much as the task of chal- 
lenging and overthrowing a time-honored and cherished opinion 
which was compelled to back into the shell of orthodoxy at 
the approach of an idea. He has studied the lives of the 
fathers to little purpose who has not discerned their insist- 
ence upon facing facts as they are, and not as they were at 
some previous time. He alone can be true either to the New 
Testament or to the spirit of this reformation who constantly 
studies to show himself approved unto God, rightly interpret- 
ing the Word of Truth. 

H the plea of the Disciples for the union of the people of 
God in accordance with the apostolic program is endangered 
by the appeal for freshness of light and leading, for open- 
mindedness and adjustment of things as they are, then it needs 
restatement to bring it into conformity with the spirit of the 
New Testament and the pioneers. — H. L. W., The Christian 
Century, Nov. IS, '06. 



—110— 



CHAPTER I. 
THE BIBLE RESTORED. 

The Renaissance was an intellectual revolt from the 
tyranny of forms which shackled the mind, keeping it 
bound to the past, thus hindering all originality, spon- 
taneity and progress. This breaking away issued in a 
beautiful life of the spirit which has permeated all the 
literature of the world. The Reformation which grew 
out of it was not so much a revolt of mind as a religious 
rebellion. It sprang from the heart of Luther which in 
its experience felt the awful bondage of works and their 
impotence to grant peace to the soul. The righteousness 
gained through works was mechanical and barren. The 
holiest efforts became stifled. There was no creative 
impulse. There was no rise of the soul to God. Luther's 
experience of the great truth "that the just shall live 
by faith" gave him the key to a world of peace into 
which the succeeding generations have entered and found 
soul satisfaction. 

Both the Revival of Learning and the Revival of Re- 
ligion, which in development largely coalesced, were in 
their most characteristic phases, but attempts to burst 
the bars of prison doors that the mind and the spirit 
might enter into their true heritage in a world of free- 

—111— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

dom. They were risings out of the grave of the past 
to the Hfe, light, and beauty of the present. Yet, how 
few out of the mass of humanity by the time of the 
Nineteenth Century had entered into these new-brought 
blessings ! These hard-earned treasures were prized 
only by the privileged few. They were worn only by 
those who constituted themselves the chosen ones by 
struggle and experience akin to the reformers. So 
ever comes lifers heritage! We cannot take it over 
without price or pains. There is no magical inheritance. 

If it would do us any real service, if it would mean 
anything to us, if it would lift us to its own level and be- 
yond it, we must each share the toil, we must each out 
of our own experience gain it anew. 

Because this is true, because the world was still in 
ignorance, superstition, and in bondage to form, Mr. 
Campbell had a large field for action. He, too, came to 
his task out of a deep and growing experience. It was 
an experience which reached the whole man, and sounded 
the depths of his being. Feeling, intellect and will at 
once rebelled. Out of this experience both the spirit 
of the Renaissance and the spirit of the Reformation 
were born anew, and came to life as one strong over- 
mastering passion for personal liberty to find God, to 
know Him, and to serve Him. It was to him a time 
such as Prof. Swing notes of Ritschl :^ "It was to him 
the beginning of a time of transition from his inherited 



1 The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl, p. 11. 

—112— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

faith to a faith of his own." Of this experience Mr. 
Campbell says: 

"But my own mind labored under the permciou3 influence 
of scholastic divinity, and the Calvinian metaphysics; and al- 
though I greatly desired to stand perfect and complete in the 
knowledge of the will of God, and my conscience could bow 
to rothing but the authority of the King Eternal, yet a full 
emancipation from the tradition of the elders I had not expe- 
rienced. This was gradual as the approaches of spring!"-^ 

His soul was yearning for God. Hie was struggling 
for the personal Christ who, Mr. Campbell believed, 
fully revealed the Father. But the Christ was lost. He 
was hidden beneath the impersonal accumulation of the 
ages. Instead of the personal Jesus, there stood bar- 
riers. He was confronted by tradition, dogma, creed, 
ritual, form. These were hiding the Christ. 

With his experience came vision. He saw the barriers 
fall away. The children of the Father, in the liberty of 
the gospel, were laboring together in the harmony of 
the Master's ideal. His soul is enraptured by this splen- 
did vision of liberty and union. Under such inspiration 
he longs and hopes. Faith lives strong in his breast. 
Faith, which ever takes our visions from the air of our 
fancy and in due time transforms them into blessed 
realities. Faith, which is not blind to the difficulties, but 
strong in victory. So out of the silence of this over- 
mastering vision comes speech. What will accomplish 
this? It can be done, but how? What will bring it 

1 C. B., p. 661. 

C8) —113— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

about? Not the Roman idea of Unity, that had already 
been tried, and had failed. While it preserved unity 
it lost liberty. Nor would the escape-from-Rome do, the 
opinions and speculations of men, no matter how well 
formulated or beautifully clasped together in creed or 
statement. There must be something more vital than 
mere thought. It must come with an appeal to the soul. 
It must come with an authority from above. What 
would do this? The rehgion of Jesus. So God gives 
Mr. Campbell his life-message. His task is programmed. 
It is to return to the fountain-head. It is to restore to 
the world the Christ and his personal gospel of life in 
all its true simplicity and pristine purity. 
This becomes the germ of his plea while year by year 
it unfolds in various ways to meet the exigencies of the 
times. 

This was not the first return to the Christ, nor the 
last. There are many returns. Each man, out of his 
own experience in longing for the Christ and in feeling 
the separating barriers, may rise up, and, tearing them 
away the best he can, go back to Christ. The uniqueness 
of Mr. Campbell's return, in the midst of a peculiar 
set of circumstances, gave the idea clearer expression 
and made it more possible for each to return. 

Perhaps the most evident feature in his return, aside 
from sincerity, is his undaunted moral heroism. He 
was unlike the religious teachers in England today as 
depicted by J. Allanson Picton:* "The real reason for 

1 The Finality of the Christian Religion (Foster), p. 14. 

—114— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

moral failures in education is that we have ceased to 
believe in the old creeds, and have not the moral courage 
to acknowledge it to ourselves. Or, if we acknowledge 
it to ourselves, our case is still worse, for we maintain 
a lying pretense before others." Mr. Campbell first 
made his acknowledgment to himself, then, facing the 
word, without let or hindrance, strenuously sought to 
tear away every barrier that hid from view the Christ 
and His gospel. 

How could he do otherwise since he had adopted 
the new method of investigation? He had yielded the 
popular superstitious method for the scientific. Nor did 
he consider this a mxachine for collecting facts, even if 
they were true, but rather a distinctive attitude of mind 
toward truth. We have found him to be one with open- 
ness of mind, accepting facts as they really exist, dis- 
satisfied with any half-way solution, and having found 
truth determined to follow it whithersoever it might lead. 
^Therefore he is prepared to take this bold stand : 

"The consciousness of truth will, without a challenge, court 
investigation, and defy contradiction."^ 

One prominent and commendable feature in Mr. 
Campbell is his touch with his age. In every sphere of 
thought and activity he was alive to the spirit of his 
times. So much is this true that Prof. Hiram Van Kirk, 
in his able work on "The Rise of the Current Reforma- 
tion," p. 50, can say of him: "He also represented the 
time^-spirit (Zeitgeist) of the American Republic. He 

1 c. f. What is Truth (Pritchett), p. 8. 2 Evidences, p. 284. 

—115— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

came in line with the great social and political move- 
ments of his day. He was the voice of democracy, of 
individualism in the religious sphere. This was the se- 
cret of his power." 

This characterization is in perfect accord with Mr. 
Campbeirs own feeling and desire. He says: 

"The motto of the spirit of this age seems to be taken from 
the gigantic Young 'Flaws in the best — full many flaws all 
o'er.' * * * 'pjjjg jg ^ ^jj^g qI religious and political earth- 
quakes. The religious communities of the new world and the 
political states of the old world are in circumstances essen- 
tially the same. A great political earthquake threatens to bury 
in its ruins tyrants and their systems of oppression. The 
ecclesiastical systems of the clergy appear destined to a simi- 
lar fate. It is to be hoped then, as the New World took the 
lead in, and first experienced the blessings of, a political re- 
generation, so they will be foremost in the work, and first 
in participating in the fruits of, an ecclesiastical renovation. 

* * * [And he is encouraged to see signs of this.] All 
sects, new and old, seem like a reed shaken by the wind. 

* * * Their 'Religious Almanacs' portend comets, falling 
stars, and strange signs in the heavens, accompanied with 
eclipses of the greater and lesser lights that rule the night. 
Their constitution is moth-eaten, and the tinsel upon their 
frame of discipline has become dim."* 

Here were the harriers confronting him in his pur- 
pose to return to the purity of Christ and His gospel. 
On the one hand, creeds and confessions magnifying the 
abstract and transcendent elements in the gospel and 
confusing and dividing the people of God. On the 

1 C. B., p. 213. 

— 116— 



^Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

other hand, the Bible translated by a superstitious and 
sectional age, breathing the very spirit of their times 
into the translation ; moreover, this same Bible receiving 
a traditional interpretation brought over from these same 
unscientific times. Set in such conditions what would 
he do? Would he dare to brush aside as worthless the 
impersonal stamp of the creeds, statements, dogmas, in 
his quest for the personal gospel truths? This he did, 
bravely and unflinchingly. This was part of his de- 
structive work. But how about the confronting Bible 
in which was enwrapped the Christ? Unscientific as it 
was in both its translation and its interpretation it was 
honored as "the Book of the Ages." The devout rested 
their all in this, infallible in every particular, errorless, 
and hence authoritative book. To question it in the 
least as it lay before them was either to wholly destroy 
their hope in it or to call down the wrath of heaven 
upon the daring critic. The book just as it was had 
grown precious. They had learned to worship its very 
form and prize it as a fetish. So much was it a charm 
that one who would take an oath must kiss, germs and 
all, even though he might swear to a lie. Before this 
!?ng-honored volume how was Mr. Campbell to stand? 
Vv^ould he dare to encroach upon its sacredness? 

It is necessary, in order to understand him as he 
enters upon his radical work of restoration, to keep in 
mind the general enlightenment of his day. It is only 
one hundred years ago, it is true. Yet it was, after all 

the enlightenment, still an uncritical and superstitious age 

—117— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

as regards the masses. It required a long- time for the 
enlightenment, the true meaning, and the real significance 
of the Renaissance and the Reformation to become the 
property of the mass. Even now, after so long a time, 
after so many centuries of culture, and blood-bought 
culture at that, we find large sections in our own pro- 
gressive America almost untouched with the world of 
nobler ideas. They are out of touch with the present 
order and living only in the superstitious ages of the past, 
notwithstanding the fact that the last century was unique 
in dispensing light and knowledge. How often it is we 
see men in their devotions hugging the dry, barren ma- 
teriality of things and drawing their inspiration from 
rocks and stones ! There may be some excuse for some. 
There might be excuse for many had not the Son of God 
laid bare the heart of things. But 'hen even his disciplts 
failed to grasp and comprehend his master-thought. They 
were thinking low when they might have been thinking 
high. They were the losers. He withheld many fine 
revelations from them simply because they were too dull 
to receive them. It is the old story, "My people perish 
for lack of knowledge." Such become the losers, yes, 
both sad and true, but just as true and sadder still, is the 
fact that every soul touches the great universe of other 
souls and the failure of one is shared by all. And such 
consideration were pessimistic as well as sad were it not 
the truth that among men the heart is leader above the 
head. Thus even amid the materialistic grasp of things 

there is something in the heart of hearts that is directive. 

—118^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Though men think low among the forms, never getting 
at the heart of things, yet their lives do blossom into love 
and duty. We may thank God that life is greater than 
thought. Yet thinking is not to be dispensed with in 
God's order. Learning of the right kind is invaluable 
to culture. 

It is amazing how little had been done in behalf of 
general education when Mr. Campbell began his work. 
The year 1809, when he came to America, Pestalozzi 
was just at the zenith of his educational fame. Froebel 
was then studying under him as a pupil. In Germany 
the great universities were not yet established. Not until 
1810 was Berlin; Breslau in 1811; Bonn in 1818; and 
Strasburg not till 1872 ! Mr. Campbell was seven years 
old before France awakened to an interest in popular 
education. The English government did not concern 
itself in education till 1818. Until 1805 there were no 
public free schools in New York City, and it was not until 
1853 that a free public school system was established. 

The new impulse in education was the work of the 
nineteenth century. From Rousseau came the idea that 
education is life ; that it must center in the child ; and must 
find its end in the individual and in each particular stage of 
his life. From Pestalozzi came that conception that effi- 
cient educational work depends upon an actual knowl- 
edge of the child and a genuine sympathy for him, that 
education is a growth from within, not a series of accre- 
tions from without, that this is the result of the experi- 
ences or activities of the child, and that sense percep- 

—119^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tion, not processes of memory, form the basis of early- 
training. 

From Herbart came the contribution of a scientific 
process of instruction, and character as the aim of in- 
struction — to be reached scientifically through the use of 
method and curriculum as defined. 

From Froebel came the true conception of the child's 
nature, the correct adjustment of the curriculum to this 
nature, and the application of the theory of evolution to 
the problem of education. 

From the scientific tendency came the insistence upon 
a revision of the idea of a liberal education, a new defini- 
tion of culture demanded by the present life, and that 
all education be directed to the development of the free 
man — the fully developed citizen. From the Sociolog- 
ical tendency came the idea that education is to produce 
good society, good citizens; that it is to do this through 
the fullest development of personality in the individual; 
that this development of personal ability and character 
must fit the individual for citizenship, life in institutions, 
social activities — in a word, that one must learn to serve 
himself by serving others.^ 

It will be remembered that the new education did not 
find entrance into our American colleges till it came in 
with the rise of Charles William Eliot to the presidency 
of Harvard in 1869, three years after Mr. Campbell's 
death. Nor did Eliot's mighty personality bring it in in 
a moment of time. Like all good things it came "as the 

1 Text-Book in the History of Education (Monroe), p. 748£, 

—120— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

approaches of spring." And some will never forget those 
days ! They can still hear the crackling ice ! They can 
still feel the alternate changes of heat and cold, of cold 
and heat, as the sun shone sometimes in clear sky, and 
sometimes behind darksome clouds ! With the stalwart 
Eliot in the midst, the spring-time full of life and beauty, 
came at last! Then reigned perpetual summer! 

One might expect Mr. Campbell to meet opposition. 
From the state of general enlightenment his advanced 
ideas would seem over-critical and unsafe. How would 
Mr. Campbell adjust himself to the situation? He con- 
templated a restoration of the lost Christ and His gospel 
in the face of barriers of long-honored establishment, 
and which had grown dear to adherents. What attitude 
zuould he take toward the Bible, before a people who, 
like Cowper's pious peasant woman, 

"Just know and know no more, their Bible true, 
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew"? 

There were at least three courses open to him. The 

first was just to throw the whole Bible overboard. Give 

it no recognition in his life and thought; turn skeptic 

and allow those longings and dreamings of the soul to 

be finally crushed out by a crass materialism. Some so 

did when they turned from their inherited faith in the 

Bible to a faith of their own. Or secondly, he might 

turn rationalist and accept that part of the Bible that he 

could consistently think true and toss the rest overboard 

as myth, having no place in a record of revelation. Or 

—121— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

thirdly, he might take the attitude of narrow-timid faith 
which out of reverence for the whole dares not question 
a part, but clings to it as it is, fearingly, but reverently, 
yet without question. He took none of these positions. 
Yet he did take a most positive stand. He revolted 
against the Bible as it was, in favor of the Bible as it 
might and should be. He would destroy the Bible as it 
was, in order to restore it as it should be. He would 
give to the world not a rationalistic Bible shredded so 
utterly of the Divine as to be no more than a code of 
beautiful ethics, but a rational Bible for rational men, 
containing both its needed human element and its es- 
sential Divine revelation. This is the Bible to which he 
would make his return for the Christ and his gospel. 
So as a basis for all true and solid building, he proposes 
a restoration of the Bible. He would brush away the 
superstitious accumulation of the ignorance of the past 
which had heaped itself upon this volume and get back 
to the original Jesus and his personal word. To many 
he seemed only a destructive critic. However, he was 
not destructive. Unless one calls the day destructive 
because it vanishes the night ; or calls the sun destructive 
because it melts the ice and gives us spring-time with 
its glad promise, and summer with its flower and fruit- 
age; or calls the seed destructive because it bursts the 
shell to germinate in life and beauty; or calls youth de- 
structive because it leaves its infancy; or calls maturity 
destructive because it yields up its former stages for a 

good old age; or calls heaven destructive because the 

—122— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

earth becomes swallowed up in the kingdom of God. 
No, he was not destructive only. Pure destruction par- 
alyzes. It is death. Mr. Campbell was pleading for 
life, more life, better life, life abundant. He was con- 
structive and inspirational. Destroying only the base 
and worthless that the true and permanent might have 
existence. So he pleads for a better Bible and welcomes 
anything that would help to give this. He says: 

"Anything and everything which tend to break the spell 
which an ignorant and bewildered priesthood have thrown over 
this volume, everything which can contribute to a more clear 
and comprehensive understanding of the volume, is, with us, 
of great moment."^ 

He would come to this book not as a storehouse of 
doctrines, but as a "book of life." To tear away the 
husk that the essential life might be manifest and pre- 
served for humanity, he felt to be his paramount duty. 
In such an endeavor he felt himself to be in swing with 
the spirit of the times. Relative to this he says : 

"To this end, it is also essential that we appreciate and 
comprehend the character and spirit of our own age, and the 
actual condition of the Christian profession in our country, 
and, indeed, in our own language, wherever spoken, at home 
or abroad. It is almost as difficult to appreciate our own 
times — the spirit and progress of our own age — as it is to 
see ourselves, either as others see us, or as we really are."^ 

This is in agreement with what Dr. Herbert L. Willett 
says : ^"The unwise teacher is the one who refuses to 

1 C. B., p. 483. 2 Add., p. S7O. 3 Ch. Cent., Nov. 22, 1906. 

—123— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

accept the spirit of the age as in any sense significant, 
and throws himself into the useless and futile task of 
re-emphasizing the features whose very over-emphasis 
has resulted in the reaction." 

Mr. Campbell, feeling the touch of his age, is able to 
champion a new emphasis. He contends for a Bible 
Vv'hich is practically a new Bible — a Bible so translated 
and interpreted as to be freed from the superstitious 
encumbrances, disclosing the original Christ and his mes- 
sage. He says: 

"Whatever, then, tends to the true interpretation or trans- 
lation of the living oracles into the language of our Christen- 
dom is an object of transcendent, nay, of paramount, import- 
ance to the answer and accomplishment of our Redeemer's 
prayer — to the health, peace, prosperity and ultimate triumph 
of our most holy faith over all the superstitions and idolatries 
of earth."^ 

As he views things progressing, and witnesses criti- 
cism undermining human authority, he breaks forth in 
an eloquent and optimistic outlook, — 

"The progress in Bible-translating, in Biblical criticism, in 
liberal principles, in the free discussion of all questions con- 
cerning state and church polity, has, more or less, broken the 
spell of human authority, roused the long-latent energies of 
the human mind, and begotten and cherished a spirit of in- 
„qulry before which truth and virtue alone can stand erect, 
with a portly mien, an unblenching eye and an unfaltering 
tongue. Errors long consecrated in hallowed fanes, backed 
by monarchlal and papal authority, lauded by lordly bishops, 
canonized by hoary rabbis in solemn conclaves, and confirmed 
1 Add., p. 596. 

—124— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

by the decrees of oecumenical councils, are being disrobed of 
all their factitious ornaments and exposed in their naked de- 
formity to the wondering gaze of a long insulted and degraded 
people. The inquiry of the people is beginning to be, What 
is truth f — not, Who says so? What say the oracles of God? — 
not. What council has so decided? We must be judged every 
man for himself. We shall, therefore, judge for ourselves. 

"The Christian mind, since the era of Protestantism, has 
been advancing with a slow but steady pace, an onward and 
an upward progress. Its noble and splendid victories in phys- 
ical science, in useful and ornamental arts, in free govern- 
ment and in social institutions, have increased its courage, 
animated its hopes and emboldened its efforts to find its proper 
eminence. It has not yet fixed its own destiny, limited its 
own aspirations, nor stipulated its subordination to any human 
arbitrament. 

"In the department of religion and divine obligation it has 
tried every form of ecclesiastical polity, every human consti- 
tution and variety of partisan and schismatic theology, and 
every scheme of propagating its own peculiar tenets. Nor has 
it yet found a safe and sure haven in which to anchor, in 
hope of coming safely to land. It will not surrender nor 
capitulate on any terms dishonorable to its own dignity, nor 
compromise its convictions for the sake of popular applause. 

"The questions of the present day are more grave and 
momentous, in their bearings on church and state, than any 
questions propounded and discussed in former times. Even 
the very text of the Holy Bible has been submitted to a more 
severe ordeal and test than at any former time. And that 
the holy oracles of salvation shall go forth in their primitive 
purity into all lands and languages is now firmly decided by 
the purest, most enlightened, most generous and noble-hearted 
men in the world."^ 

1 Add., p. 625. 

—125— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Truth was what Mr. Campbell was wanting. And in 
its quest he feared not light. He was unlike the man 
to whom a microscope was brought which revealed to 
him the living germs in the water he drank; he there- 
upon smashed the microscope. Upon the entrance of 
light too many scatter as the insects when an old board 
is lifted from their cozy retreat, exposing them to the 
light and radiance of God's sunshine. Mr. Campbell's 
demand for light was co-existent with his call for truth. 
He says: 

"That all men who love truth, and especially Bible truth, 
desire to come to the light, or to have light brought to them, 
is as clearly an historical as it is a philosophical fact. It is 
well established in the history of translations. Were I to 
assert dogmatically that truth and light are cognate, I would 
stake my reputation on the fact that every lover of truth loves 
light. The Savior, himself, suggests to us the idea, in say- 
ing, *He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds 
may be made manifest that they are wrought ot God.' Error 
or falsehood, and darkness, are also akin. They are of cognate 
pedigree. Hence said the Great Teacher, 'He that does evil 
hates light;' and men 'come not to the light, lest their deeds 
should be reproved' or made manifest."^ 

Again he says: 

"Christianity, like its founder, never loved darkness. It never 
shunned light."^ 

"Light thou our candle while we read. 
And keep our hearts from going blind."^ 

In proof of this historical fact mentioned, Mr. Camp- 
bell says: 

1 Add., p. 571. 2 ^vid., p. 433. 3 Henry Van Dyke. 

—126— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"From the era of Protestantism till now, Protestants, in 
the ratio of their Protestant sincerity, or true Protestantism, 
have been active, zealous and forward in the great work of 
translating the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into the vulgar 
tongues. The Roman Catholic has been equally distinguished 
for her opposition to popular versions, or to translations made 
in the language of the common people. So have those Prot- 
■ estants that have borrowed freely from Papal Rome."^ 

As he was agitating a new translation of the Bible a 
brother Baptist handed him a tract stating ten reasons 
why the authorized version should not be revised. Of 
this he comments as follows : 

"I opened it with much interest. To its title page my 
attention was instantly turned, and fixed upon its remark- 
able motto — 'The Id-Fashioned Bible.' While ponder- 
ing upon the author's design in this strange motto, I 
hastily turned to its last page, and again read, — 

" 'The old-fashioned Bible, the dear, blessed Bible, 
The family Bible, that lay on the stand.' 

" *Is this,' said I to myself, *an ad captandum vulgus, a lure 
for the unwary reader, or the great argument for the inviola- 
bility and immortality of King James' version?' I dared not, 
till I had read it through, answer the first inquiry. I had no 
sooner glanced through the ten arguments than my eyes were 
opened. The spirit of the motto is the soul of its ten argu- 
ments. Its body or substance is, 'The purpose' to have and to 
introduce a new version 'is fraught with injury' and ruin to 
(he Baptists. Alas, for the feeble Baptists if a new version 
*is fraught with injury' and ruin to the denomination! But, 
combining his logic and rhetoric in two lines, he finds their 
salvation in 
1 Add., p. 571. 

—127— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

'"The old-fashioned Bible, the dear blessed Bible, 
The family Bible, that lay on the stand.' 

"After a moment's reflection, it occurred to me that not only 
the motto, but the whole ten arguments, in their soul, body and 
spirit, were as good against a new version in the days of Tindal 
as now, and will be as good, as sound, as conclusive, against 
a new version, against every change which has been, is now 
or will hereafter be proposed, through all coming time. 

"From the printing of Tindal's version till that of James' 
version, there was a copy of the Bible in many Christian fami- 
lies, and some of them lay on the stand. Now, on the first 
motion in the fatherland, to have an improved version, had 
the author of the 'Ten Reasons' have been living and con- 
sulted, he would have raised the tune of the 'old-fashioned 
Bible that lay on the stand,' and for this good and sound rea- 
son — that good sense and good logic are immutably the same, 
yesterday, today and tomorrow. Ii an old-fashioned Bible lying 
one year, or one century, on a stand, be a sound and satis- 
factory argument against a new version of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, it will forever be an invincible argument against any 
correction, emendation or change whatever. 

"The ten reasons given in this pamphlet of six-and-thirty 
pages, arithmetically enumerated and logically arranged, are a 
mere dilution or expansion of this one popular ana prolific 
syllogism. 

"It is again presented in the following words : 

"The mere purpose to have a new version is 'fraught with 
injury to the denomination,' 'destructive of brotherly love and 
harmony,' 'suicidal to the American and Foreign Bible Society,' 
'and utterly uncalled for by any consideration of principles or 
of duty.' These are the four cardinal points to which are 
respectively directed the ten reasons. 

"The ten reasons are, indeed, essentially^ one and all, polit- 
ical or denominational. The glory, honor, and integrity of the 

—128— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Baptist denomination, it would appear, are much more, in the 
eye and heart of their author, than the importance or value 
of a pure and faithful, a clear and intelligible, translation of 
the oracles of God. This I hope is not so. But he writes 
and reasons in such a way as to make it appear so, and thus 
injures his own reputation much more than he can impede the 
glorious enterprise. For this cannot fail, Heaven being as- 
suredly on its side."^ 

This is a very interesting piece of history. It gives 
us some valuable logic. Mr. Campbell's own progressive 
spirit stands revealed upon the background of his times. 
It becomes wonderfully revealing since we stand on the 
other side of its fulfillment. 

Here we find him again turning his back upon the 
findings of the authoritative past and linking himself 
to this "glorious enterprise" of giving to the world a 
new translation of the Scriptures. For some years this 
becomes the burden of his thought and receives his never- 
ceasing agitation. In this effort he stands foremost 
among the Biblical critics, who, unwilling to take the 
Bible as it was laying on the stand, would question its 
authority, take it from the stand, give it a free, unbiased 
self-examination, take off the old dress of translation, 
and give it to the world in a new dress. In this task 
there is the recognition of the abiding over the occa- 
sional. It would destroy the old form which was time- 
worn and had fulfilled its mission and reconstruct a new 
form that one might have better access to the old, that 
was constant and assuring. 

1 Add., p. 631f. 

(9) —129— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

No one has given this controlling idea of Mr. Camp- 
bell's clearer expression in a few words than Prof. 
Charles Foster Kent: "'The student of history at once 
recognizes in the modern movement, of which the watch- 
word is, 'Back to the testimony of the Bible/ the direct 
sequel to the Protestant Reformation. The early reform- 
ers took the chains off the Bible and put it into the hands 
of men, with full permission to study and search. Vested 
interests and dogmatism soon began to dictate how it 
should be studied and interpreted, and thus it was again 
placed practically under lock and key. It is an interest- 
ing fact that a young Zulu chief, a pupil of Bishop Co- 
lenso of South Africa, first aroused the Anglo-Saxon 
world to the careful, fearless, and therefore truly rever- 
ential study of its Old Testament. With this new im- 
petus, the task of the Reformers was again taken up, 
and in the same open, earnest spirit. For two genera- 
tions it has commanded the consecrated energies of the 
most thorough scholars of Christendom. Those of Eng- 
land, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Swit- 
zerland, Norway, Sweden, America and Canada have 
worked shoulder to shoulder dividing the work, carefully 
collecting and classifying the minutest data, comparing 
results, and, on the basis of all this work, formulating 
conclusions, some assured and some hypothetical, which 
best explain the facts. The church is undoubtedly 
passing quietly through a revolution in its conception 
and attitude toward the Bible more fundamental and 

1 The Origin and Value of the Old Testament, p. 15£. 

—130— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

far-reaching than that represented by its precursor, the 
Protestant Reformation; but its real significance is daily 
becoming more apparent. Not a grain of truth which 
the Bible contains has been destroyed or permanently 
obscured. Instead, the debris of time-honored traditions 
and dogmas have been cleared away, and the true Scrip- 
tures at last stand forth again in their pristine splendor." 
This was written in 1906. Mr. Campbell's prophetic 
spirit, almost one hundred years ago, believed that heaven 
was on the side of liberty and progress, and threw him* 
self into this movement of scholarly criticism which has 
made possible our present condition of faith and knowl- 
edge. Not destroying the Bible, but saving the Bible by 
destroying the false traditions gathering about it. There 
is so much that is common to Alexander Campbell and 
the great German Albrecht Ritschl that one feels like 
constantly noting parallels. What Prof. Swing says of 
Ritschl's methods is so obvious of Mr. Campbell's. He 
is contrasting the purely sentimental method of treating 
truth which is so extensive in many quarters with 
Ritschl's scientific method. He says : ^ "He does not de- 
nounce; by a scientific method he analyzes, and truth 
and error appear. If he would advance a truth he does 
not ransack the literary scrap book for fine phrases; but 
by his scientific principle he is able to discover and point 
out true values. Even if this scientific principle should 
not prove to be the ultimate one, it is still his great ex- 
cellence that he at least had such a principle which he 

1 The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl, p. ^, 

^131— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

continually used to build up as well as pull down." 

In Mr. Campbell's plea for a restored Bible he occu- 
pied a foremost place among the great leaders of Bib- 
lical criticism. Dr. Errett Gates, of Chicago University, 
says:^ "The modern science of 'Biblical theology,' 
of which Alexander Campbell was, in some respects, a 
forerunner, and of which Weiss, Beyschlag and Stevens 
are the great representatives, avows its one purpose to 
be the discovery of the original meaning of biblical writ- 
ings." 

In the next chapter we will learn from his own words 
his attitude toward Biblical criticism. This shall prepare 
us for an understanding of how he would give to the 
world a restored Bible. 

1 Ch. Cent., Dec. 13,1906. 



^132-^ 



CHAPTER n. 

Criticism. 



Afraid of the higher criticism? Is the slave afraid of Lin- 
coin who comes to set him free? Afraid of investigation? Is 
David afraid of Samuel when he comes to anoint him King? 
Afraid of more light? Is the plant, half out of the seed, afraid 
of the sun that comes to free it from its cerements of clay, 
and lift it up, singing, into blossom and into a full-grown tree? 
Afraid of the scholar? Is the maiden afraid of her beloved 
when he comes with ring and orange-blossoms to claim his 
bride? Afraid of the fires of testing? Is the silver afraid of 
the smelter? Is the diamond afraid of the lapidary who comes 
to find it with gold on the hand of love? * * * "Truth, 
like diamonds, is brighter for polishing." Bread is better for 
kneading. Jesus on the cross was exalted. The Bible is en- 
throned by criticism. Already dawns the time of its new cor- 
onation. * * * jsjo man can be a scholar unless he knows it. 
The poets tip their fancies with its beauty, and orators crown 
their oration with its golden words. The people have never 
ceased to love it, and now they are going to know it. The 
solace of the aged, the hope of the disconsolate, the inspira- 
tion of the living, the comfort of the dying, it has been and 
inceasingly will be for the children of men 'The Word of God.' 
And our children's children, loving it as much as their fathers, 
but knowing it better, will say when they are old, out of a long 
and sweet experience, like one of old: 

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
And a light unto my path." 

'— N. McGee Waters, in "A Young Man's Religion and His 
Father's Faith." 



—134— 



CHAPTER II. 
CRITICISM. 

It is as scholar and critic that Mr. Campbell was most 
bitterly opposed by his own times. And as such he is 
most venerated to-day. In his environment he was far 
beyond his age. "Mr. Campbell was the vender of the 
world's best learning. Herein lies another secret of the 
conflict. Mr. Campbell brought the best Old World 
scholarship into the backwoods of America. He easily 
outstripped all his competitors in his facility in mar- 
shaling on his side the great authorities of the world's 
history. He had no equal in debate or popular expo- 
sition. This brilliancy brought him an ardent personal 
following. It also won him bitter enemies. There was 
between him and his opponents the chasm of two worlds' 
cultures. It was inevitable that strife and division should 
ensue."^ 

Mr. Campbell himself, in the preface of his new trans- 
lation of the Testament, says: 

"We have followed to the utmost of our ability and candor 
the rules of criticism and interpretation laid down by the mas- 
ters of criticism and the most distinguished translators. * * * 

"Our qualifications for such a work are, that we have their 
labors before us — an acquaintance and correspondence with men 

1 The Rise of the Current Reformation (Van Kirk), p. 129. 

—135— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of reputation — a small degree of mental independence — a little 
:ommon sense — and some veneration for the oracles of God. 
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and, though of less stat- 
ure, we can see as far as they; or, like the wren on the back 
of the eagle, we have as large a horizon as the eagle which 
has carried us above the clouds."^ 

Again he says : 

"In the department of notes critical and explanatory, we 
have not, in any instance known to us, departed from the can- 
ons of criticism. * * * jf^ \^ ^.ny point, we have given a 
different result from some of them, we always wrought by their 
own canons of criticism. We have neither made nor adopted 
any by-laws, or rules of interpretation, unsanctioned and un- 
approved by the constitution of the commonwealth of letters."^ 

Appeal to the ablest critical scholarship characterized 
all his labors. He acquaints us v^ith the sensible stand 
which he took as a critic in these words : 

"We have learned one lesson of great importance in the 
pursuit of truth; one that acts as a pioneer to prepare the way 
of knowledge — one that cannot be adopted and acted upon but 
the result must be salutary. It is this : Never to hold any sen- 
timent or proposition as more certain than the evidence on 
which it rests; or, in other words, that our assent to any prop- 
osition should be precisely proportioned to the evidence on 
which it rests. All beyond this we esteem enthusiasm — all short 
of it, incredulity." (He then quotes Dr. George Campbell as 
perfectly expressing the sentiments of himself.) "If to make 
proselytes by the sword is tyranny in rulers, to resign our 
understanding to any man, and receive implicitly what we ought 
to be rationally convinced of, would be, on our part, the lowest 
servility. Everything, therefore, here is subjected to the test 

1 Uv. Ora., p. 71. 2 ibid., p. 74 . 

—136— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of scripture and sound criticism. I am not very confident of 
my own reasonings. I am sensible that, on many points, I have 
changed my opinion, and found reason to correct what I had 
judged formerly to be right. The consciousness of former mis- 
takes proves a guard to preserve me from such a presumptuous 
confidence in my present judgment, as would preclude my giv- 
ing a patient hearing to whatever may be urged, from reason 
or scripture, in opposition to it. Truth has been in all my 
inquiries, and still is my great aim. To her I am ready to 
sacrifice every personal consideration; but am determined not, 
knowingly, to sacrifice her to anything."^ 

It is with a feeling of genuine pride that the disciples 
of Christ can say that the fathers of their movement were 
not given to the emotion of the hour, or to extremes of 
any sort, but always sought to arrive at their positions 
rationally and reverently making appeal to the ablest and 
sanest critical scholarship of their time. 

Since Mr. Campbell was a critic, because so much mis- 
understanding arose over his apparent destructive criti- 
cisms upon the Bible, and in view of the fact that even 
to-day not a few grow alarmed at the word critic, it seems 
necessary to ask: What is Biblical Criticism f 

Professor Marvin R. Vincent,^ in "That Monster, the 
Higher Critic," illustrates the attitude of the unenlight- 
ened and uninitiated toward Biblical criticism by the 
"story of a wag who laid a wager that he would break 
up a country menagerie and circus. Accordingly, when 
the rustic crowd had dul)^ inspected the elephant and the 

1 C. B., p. 3. 2 The Front Line of the Sunday School Movement (Peloubet), 
p. 200. 

—137— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

hyenas, and were seated round the arena eagerly await- 
ing the entrance of the clown and the bareback rider, 
he rushed into the ring, waving his hat, and shouting: 
Xadies and gentlemen, save yourselves. The Gyascutus 
has broke loose!' 

''Dire was the panic that followed; numerous the 
bruises and scratches; appalling the damage to bonnets 
and draperies ; but the tent was emptied at last, and the 
farmers and their wives and daughters were jogging 
homeward and congratulating each other on their escape, 
when it occurred to some of them to ask, "What is a 
gyascutus, anyway?" (A gyascutus is either a beetle 
about an inch long, or an imaginary animal.) 

"Upon the settled faith and tranquil content of a large 
body of Christians breaks the cry, 'the higher criticism 
has broken loose!' 

"Meanwhile few stop to ask, 'What is higher criticism, 
anyway?' The majority run; that is, they evade the 
question with some such irrelevant platitude as 'The Old 
Bible is good enough for me.' " 

One might with equal propriety in the face of the 
modern express raise the cry, "The old stage coach is 
good enough for me. Likewise of all the modern inven- 
tions which have come to further perfect life. It is but 
the savage cry that would stay with the old and customary 
rather than enter into a more perfect civilization. The 
raisers of such cries always prate about the new coming 
to take away their religion; whereas only the false con- 
ceptions about their religion are being destroyed. 

—138— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"A worn-out Dogma died; around its bed 
Its votaries wept as if all Truth were dead; 
But heaven-born Truth is an immortal thing." 

Such people find their prototype in those "Jerusalem 
Wailers," who congregate at the city wall and frantically 
beat the air, weeping and wailing for the lost glory of 
their people. With their faces toward the departed past 
and their hearts in it, they lose all the significance of the 
present as well as defeat all future glory. 

It is simply the old cry that ever comes upon the en- 
trance of new light or discovery. It is Cremonini avow- 
ing that he would never look through the telescope again 
because it refuted Aristotle. It is Luther and Melanc- 
thon crying out against the Copernican theory of the 
mobility of the earth. With all their progressiveness in 
things religious and moral they were still so unscientific 
as to lose sight of the true world order upon which their 
findings might stand secure. 

Hear Luther upon astronomy: "People gave ear to an 
upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth re- 
volved, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the 
moon. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of 
astronomy, but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua com- 
manded the sun to stand still and not the earth."^ 

Melancthon, who was even more scholarly than Luther, 
said: "The eyes are the witnesses that the heavens re- 
volve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain 
men, either from the love of novelty or to make a dis- 

1 The Finality of the Christian Religion (Foster) , p. 162. 

—139— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

play of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; 
and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the 
sun revolves. Now it is want of honesty and decency 
to assert such notions publicly, and the example is per- 
nicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth 
as revealed by God and! to acquiesce in it. The earth 
can be nowhere except in the center of the universe."^ 

These reformers understood religion, but were un- 
versed in science. One old gentleman said, within the 
past year, that he knew the world was not round because 
if so the township sections would not come out even. 
Another said it was flat because the Bible spoke of the 
four corners of the earth. Mr. Campbell speaks of "The 
old woman who would not believe in the revolutions of 
our planet because she never yet saw her garden turn 
around to the front of her house."^ 

Nevertheless, the Copernican theory has become estab- 
lished in the world's system of thinking; likewise geol- 
ogy, evolution, and historical criticism. While we still 
have the Bible, and a better Bible, upon a firmer basis for 
intelligent thought than at any previous time. Higher 
criticism (so called) has come in an opportune time not 
to destroy the Bible, but to correct our false views and 
notions about the Bible, that we may adjust its contents 
to our knowledge of the universe, and learn to appreciate 
more truly God's self-revelation. "The Bible is what the 
Bible means, and not what inaccurate translations and 
interpretations make it seem to mean. The Bible is what 

1 The Finality of the Christian Religion, p. 163. 2 Evidences, p. 203. 

—140— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the Bible really is, and not what men pledged to a pre- 
conception have tried to force it to be."^ 

In the spirit of Mr. Campbell, who feared not that 
truth would be lost in investigation, in imitation of him 
we would consult the ablest scholars and know what crit- 
icism is before we seek to condemn it. 

Mathew Arnold gives this brief clear-cut general defini- 
tion of criticism: "A. disinterested endeavor to learn 
and propagate the best that is known and thought in the 
world.'" 

President King says : "Positively higher criticism may 
be defined as a careful historical and literary study of a 
book to determine its unity, age, authorship, literary 
form, and reliability."^ 

Again he says: "The only wise policy for the Chris- 
tian church is the frankest and fullest facing of the facts, 
without timidity and without prejudice. The great 
body of the church are able to shut their eyes to these 
difiiculties, simply because they have always read their 
Bibles so in bits that they really do not know the phe- 
nomena which it contains. For the real student of the 
Bible, criticism is a help, not a hindrance to his faith.'"* 

In an extended definition President Harper wrote : "Do 
you ask what criticism is in its technical sense ? I answer 
in a single word, 'inquiry'. The whole business of the 
critic is to make inquiry. The literary critic inquires as 
to the authorship, the authenticity, the style and the 

1 The English Reformation and Puritanism (Hulbert), p. 444. 2 Essays in 

Criticism, p. 29. 3 Reconstructions in Theology (King), p. 112. 4 Ibid., 
p. 14f. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

character of a particular writing. The historical critic 
makes inquiry as to the date and details of an historical 
event, and its relations to other events which occurred 
before and after. It is difficult, however, to separate 
literary and historical criticism. History and literature 
have always been and are inseparable. Shall we then 
find a single word to describe the process of inquiry 
which includes both the literary and the historical ? It is 
the word 'higher' as distinguished from 'lower,' the latter 
being a word applicable to inquiry which relates only 
to the text.'" 

Dr. Strong in his "New Era" wisely puts the situation 
as follows: "The application of the scientific method to 
history has dissipated into myth or legend much that 
our fathers held as substantial reality. Furthermore, it 
has been a mischievous mistake on the part of many 
Christians to build their faith not solely on Christ, the 
Rock of Ages, but partly and largely on the shifting 
sands of human theories; and as the progress of knowl- 
edge has destroyed these human foundation the faith of 
many has perished with them. Not a few are saying 
to-day that if they are compelled to surrender their belief 
in the inerrancy of Scripture, their faith in Christianity 
will have to go with it. That would be a sacrifice as 
gratuitous as sad. Nothing can shake my confidence in 
Christianity which does not shake my confidence in the 
genuineness of the life and character of Christ, for he is 
the only true foundation of the Christian faith. It has 

1 Higher Criticism (Garrison), p. 3. 

—142— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

been said that Romanism is the religion of a church, and 
that Protestatism is the rehgion of a book. Both church 
and Bible are necessary, but all true Christianity, whether 
Protestant or Roman Catholic, is the religion of a person, 
centered in Christ, and drawing its life and power from 
Him."' 

Dr. Frederic W. Parrar, of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, makes some important and weighty remarks in 
his History of Interpretation : "Something more is need- 
ful than that we learn to despise the wrangling pettiness 
of party spirit, the spurious and dishonest criticism of 
party, journaHsm, and the idle reiteration of party shib- 
boleths. We shall never rightly understand the Holy 
Scriptures unless we keep alive among us the Spirit of 
Freedom and the Spirit of Progress. It is necessary 
that we read the handwriting of God written upon the 
palace walls of all tyrannies, whether sacred or secular. 
It is necessary to learn that 'there is nothing so danger- 
ous, because there is nothing so revolutionary and con«" 
vulsive, as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the 
world is by the very law of its creation in eternal prog- 
ress.' It is necessary that we should read in God's book 
of history that 'the cause of all the evil in the world may 
be traced to that deadly error of human indolence and 
corruption, that it is our duty to preserve, and not to 
improve.' It is above all essential that we should see 
the hand of God in current events, and understand the 
thoughts which He is expressing by the movements in 

1 Higher Criticism, p. 29£. 

—143— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the midst of which we live. Since the days of the Fathers 
arid the schoolmen every sphere of knowledge has been 
almost immeasurably dilated, and many conceptions re- 
garded as irrefragable have been utterly revolutionized. 
Again and again have God's other revelations flashed 
upon the sacred page a light which has convicted its most 
positive interpreters of fundamental errors. Amid this 
outburst of new and varied knowledge which has en- 
larged in so many directions our comprehension of God's 
dealing with our race, it would be disheartening, indeed, 
and it would be a contradiction to the whole course of 
history, if we had made no advance in our knowledge of 
interpreting Scripture. It would have been shameful if 
we had remained content with the exegesis of the Rabbis, 
who were children of an imperfect and abrogated dispen- 
sation, or the Fathers who *lived among the fallen leaves 
of the old world,' or the schoolmen in the ages of an 
all but universal ignorance. It was inevitable, nay, it 
was most necessary, nay, more, the sacredness of truth — 
which *is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch 
as the sunbeam' — made it imperative that new principles 
of inquiry and modern methods of criticism should be 
extended to those records of revelation in which it was 
certain that nothing could suffer which was intrinsically 
truthful or divine. The real question to ask about any 
form of religious belief is: Does it kindle the fire of 
love? Does it make the life stronger, sweeter, purer, 
nobler? Does it run through the whole society like a 

cleansing flame, burning up that which is mean and base 

—144— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

and selfish and impure? If it stands that test it is no 
heresy. Where the spirit of God is there is Hberty. All 
these questions have been under discussion for many 
years; yet to multitudes of those who on these ques- 
tions have come to decisions which are in opposition to 
current opinions, the Bible is still the divinest of all books 
and the Lord Jesus Christ is still the Son of God, the 
Savior of the World." 

Willard Chamberlain Selleck, D, D,, gives an ex- 
cellent treatment of the work of criticism. He calls at- 
tention to the fact that the word criticism denotes to 
pass judgment upon or to determine. It conveys the 
idea, not of fault finding, but of fairly and justly esti- 
mating both merits and defects. It is merely the science 
and art of understanding the Scriptures. He notes the 
fact that the New Testament appears in 3,829 manu- 
scripts. The "variants" amount to more than 150,000. 
These arose in various ways. Some from slip of pen in 
copying; some by mixing with marginal notes; some by 
dimming of words, etc. Now the "Lower Criticism" 
concerns itself in determining what the Biblical writers 
really wrote. It consists of discovering, examining, and 
appraising the various manuscripts, and results in a cor- 
rected text. The "Higher Criticism" confines itself to 
the inner substance of Scripture, dealing with the literary 
features; judging character, origin, and the relation of 
the books. It studies style, structure and thought. It 
seeks to determine author and date. It aims to under- 

1 The New Appreciation of the Bible, p. 70f. 
(10) —145— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

stand time and circumstances. Says Mr. Selleck: "The 
special reason why such a work is necessary lies in the 
fact that the Scriptures, like other literary remains of 
antiquity, were produced in an uncritical age, that is to 
say, an unscientific age. Our age is not satisfied with 
tradition, but wants verification ; in other words, it wants 
knowledge wherever possible, or adequate reasons for its 
faith."^ 

That distinguished scholar. Prof. W. Robertson Smith, 
writes : "The critical study of ancient documents means 
nothing else than a careful sifting of their origin and 
meaning in the light of history."^ 

Prof. George T. Ladd says : "By the Higher Criticism 
is meant that study which tries to reproduce the influ- 
ences and circumstances out of which the Biblical books 
arose, and thus exhibit them as true children of their 
own time."' 

Prof. B. A. Hinsdale upon the historical method utters 
this significant remark:* "It has modified theories 
of the origin of the Scriptures. It points out the un- 
mistakable human elements in those books. It shades 
down the difference between the Sacred literature and 
other literatures. It points out parallelisms of theme, 
style and subject-matter between the Hebrew and Greek 
Scriptures and other writings. It makes Christianity a 
part of the history of the world, and not something 
wholly foreign and extra-human. Some Christians fear 

1 The New Appreciation of the Bible, p. 87. 2 ibid., 86. S ibid. 

4 Ch. Quar. July, 1896, p. 269 
—146— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

historical and critical inquiries will abolish the Divine 
Word altogether. But others, with better reason, believe 
that the change is from a narrow basis to a broad one." 
In view of what criticism is upon these statements 
from the best authorities, and in face of Mr. Campbell's 
own utterance and labors, one can readily see that Tie is 
both a 'Lower Critic and a Higher Critic/ Mr. Camp- 
bell gives us his estimation of criticism in the words 
of the critic, Du Pin, whom he so extensively uses in his 
debate on the Roman Catholic religion. He says: 

"Criticism is a kind of torch, that lights and conducts us, 
in the obscure tracts of antiquity, by making us able to dis- 
tinguish truth from falsehood, history from fable and antiquity 
from novelty. 'Tis by this means that In our times we have 
disengaged ourselves from an infinite number of very com- 
mon errors into which the fathers fell for want of examining 
things by the rules of true criticism. For 'tis a surprising thing 
to consider how many spurious books we find In antiquity; nay, 
even in the first ages of the church."^ 

Wit-i these ideas In mind we shall be better able to 
appreciate Mr. Campbell's true place in Biblical Criticism. 
Higher criticism, then. Is not what some have ingeniously 
surmised it to be, a Bible In the place of the Bible. It is 
simply a method, a scientific way of historical investiga- 
tion. It is going to the Bible in a proper scientific way 
In contradistinction to going to it with no method — the 
popular haphazard way. Mr. Campbell falls into line 
with this scientific method of Investigation and tfecomes 



1 D.onR. C. R.,p. 118. 

—147— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

one of the most opposed American critics. We are now 
prepared to follow him understandingly in his labors — 
watch the critic as he works. How will he put into effect 
his progressive principles ? What will he propose as nec- 
essary to give us a restored Bible? If we are apt in 
learning we shall find that he practically gives us a new 
Bible. Or, more properly, the old essential Bible, lifeless 
under its weight of tradition, comes to life in a new 
form. 



—148— 



CHAPTER ni, 
New Versions. 



Slavery is that which cramps powers. The worst slaver}^ is 
that which cramps the noblest powers. Worse, therefore, than 
he who manacles the hands and feet is he who puts fetters 
on the mind, and pretends to demand that men shall think, 
and believe, and feel thus and thus, because others so believed, 
and thought, and felt before. 

In Judea life had become a set of forms, and religion a 
congeries of traditions. One living word from the lips of Christ, 
and the mind of the world was free. 

Later, a mountain mass of superstition has gathered round 
the Church, atom by atom, and grain by grain. Men said that 
the soul was saved only by doing and believing what the priest- 
hood taught. Then the heroes of the Reformation spoke. 
Once more the mind of the world was made free, and made 
free by truth. 

There is a tendency in the masses always to think — not what 
is true, but — what is respectable, correct, orthodox : We ask, 
is that authorized? It comes partly from the uncertainty and 
darkness of all moral truths, and the dread of timid minds to 
plunge into the investigation of them. Now, truth known and 
believed respecting God and man frees from this, by warning 
of individual responsibility. But responsibility is personal. It 
cannot be delegated to another, and thrown off upon the church. 
Before God, face to face, each soul must stand to give account, 
— Frederick W. Robertson (Sermons, p. 213). 



^150— 



CHAPTER III. 
NEW VERSIONS. 

When one considers Mr. Campbell as a preacher in 
his relation to the common people he sees in him the pos- 
itive rough-and-ready Luther taking things as they are 
and making the best of them, earnestly pleading for the 
Bible and the Bible alone, and vehemently calling all to 
its sacred pages. In fact, Mr. Campbell says : 

"We are truly thankful that there is no version so wholly 
defective that an honest reader, learned or unlearned, may not 
understand the great scheme of salvation, and believe and obey 
it to the salvation of his soul."^ 

But when we turn to him as a critic it seems that we 
have stepped out of the Reformation and gone back 
into the Renaissance. Here we find in him the temper of 
the scholar and are reminded of Erasmus and his friend 
Colet, who delivered their message more in the terms of 
the school than in the language of the church. 

When Luther came to the Bible he was too partial to 
the old Catholic view. Says Prof. Swing: "But Luther 
takes it for granted that the 'Holy Scriptures' and 
Word of God are interchangeable.' And this view was 
never attacked in this period — yet the interchangeable- 

1 Add., p. 582. 

^151-^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

ness of the 'Word of God' and 'Holy Scripture* is a 
remnant of the old Catholic views which are not in ac- 
cord with Luther's fundamental ideas."^ 

Says Dean Hulbert: "Erasmus was pre-eminently a 
man of letters, and not a reformer ; nevertheless, in spite 
of himself, by his literary labors, he did more than any 
living man to prepare the way for the Protestant Revo- 
lution. Erasmus got into his head that to the learned 
world ought to be given the Greek New Testament in 
the book form. I think the spirit of God lodged that 
thought in his mind. Certain it was no vain ambition 
of the mere scholar. These are his words: 'If the ship 
of the church is to be saved from being swallowed up 
by the tempest, there is only one anchor that can save it. 
It is the heavenly word, which, issuing from the bosom 
of the Father, lives, speaks and works still in the gospel. 
It is not from human reservoirs, fetid with stagnant 
waters, that we should draw the doctrine of salvation; 
but from the pure and abundant streams that flow from 
the heart of God. A spiritual temple must be raised 
in desolated Christendom. The mighty of the world will 
contribute toward it in their marble, their ivory, and 
their gold; I, who am poor and humble, offer the foun- 
dation stone.' "^ This foundation stone was "to re- 
store the pure text of the Word of God." This Erasmus 
accomplished. "Then," says Dean Hulbert, "the oppo- 
sition began. The priests declared: 'If this book be 

1 Out. of the Doct. Devl't of the West. Ch. (Based on the Dogmengeschicte 
of Friedrich l/oofs— By Albert T. Swing) , p. 66. 

2 The English Reformation and Puritanism (Hulbert), p. 72ft 

—152— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tolerated it will be the death of the papacy/ They fully 
understood that a Greek Testament to-day meant an Eng- 
lish Testament to-morrow; for Erasmus himself had 
said : Terhaps it may be necessary to conceal the secrets 
of Kings, but we must publish the mysteries of Christ. 
The Holy Scriptures, translated into all languages, should 
be read not only by the Scotch and Irish, but even by 
Turks and Saracens. The husbandman should sing them 
as he holds the handle of his plow, the weaver repeat 
them as he plies his shuttle, and the wearied traveler, 
halting on his journey, refresh him under some shady 
tree by these godly narratives.' The monks and bishops 
scented the danger from afar, and they raised a howl. 
This book must go or our race is run. Let the book live 
and we must die !"^ 

This is the atmosphere that surrounds Mr. Campbell 
as he demands a restoration of the pure Word of God. 
He recognizes the mighty influence of the Renaissance as 
the cause of the Reformation in its effort for a better 

Bible when he says : 

"A remarkable revival of literature preceded the Protestant 
Reformation. That revival is now regarded by every philosophic 
historian and student — indeed, by every reader who thinks pro- 
foundly upon principles and their tendencies, who weighs the 
remote and proximate causes of things, or who fathoms their 
legitimate tendencies — I say the revival of literature in Italy 
and western Europe, which occurred in the fourteenth century, 
is now regarded by every informed mind as the harbinger, or 



1 The English Reformation and Puritanism (Hulbert) , p. 74. 

—153— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

cause, of the Protestant Reformation; and that reformation may 
be regarded as the pioneer and patron of Bible-translations."^ 

He took an urgent and positive position in behalf of 
new Bible translations. 

This responsibility was so considerable that its neglect 
would be sin. He says : 

"We must affirm the conviction that we are, as Christian 
churches, bound, by the highest and holiest motives and obliga- 
tions, to use our best endeavors to have the original Scriptures 
exactly and faithfully, in every particular, to the best of our 
knowledge and belief, translated at home and abroad, into the 
vernacular, be it what it may, in which we desire to present 
them to our fellow-men. Anything short of this is a sinful and 
most condemnable negligence or indifference." ^ 

This became with him a life-long effort in which he 
met great opposition. Opposition arose because of the 
different viewpoints from which he and his opponents 
regarded the Bible. The latter regarded the Bible ex- 
clusively divine. To them it was all Word of God. It 
was perfect, errorless in every particular, and therefore 
authoritative. Hence they would keep it as it is, suffer- 
ing no change. It is a sacred deposit coming from God 
as it were right down from heaven. Thus they clasped 
it with a fearful reverence. As one man said, "We must 
read it in the good old English, the very language that 
Jesus Christ and his apostles used." One reverent old 
sister took the large family Bible out from under the 
child at the table, and having nothing else near by that 
could be put in the chair to raise the child up, allowed him 

1 Add., p. 578. 2Add., p. 613. 

— 154-r 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

to eat his meal reaching up the best he could. Not that 
she feared the child would mar the book, but to sit on 
God's Word was irreverent and simply awful. 

This is a relic of Catholicism, or, rather, Judaism 
conserved in Catholicism. The individual is lost sight 
of in the institution. The letter is exalted above the 
spirit. Attention riveted upon the channel of communica- 
tion fails to hear the true voice of God. 

Mr. Campbell^ on the contrary, looked upon the Bible 
as having a human side as well as a divine. To him 
its perfection lay not in its verbal inerrancy and infalli- 
bility, but in the glory of its religious character. To him 
the Bible was not a book of laws to be literally and 
slavishly followed, but rather a book of facts and princi- 
ples to be understood and developed. It was a human 
book coming out of the circumstances of the times, and 
written by human beings. This human recognition of 
the Bible enabled him when regarding the letters of the 
New Testament, to say: 

"These documents growing out of the actual conditions and 
peculiarities of these communities were written for our instruc- 
tion and direction in all the contingencies to which the churches 
of the Lord Jesus may be subjected in all varieties of condition 
and circumstances through which they must pass in this present 
evil world. The things that happened to them were written for 
our edification."^ 

Again he says : 

"There were, indeed, but a few facts, however diversified in 

1 Mill. Har., 1858, p. 62. 

—155— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

style and manner of exhibition, continually pressed upon the 
attention and cordial reception of those to whom the glad tid- 
ings were announced. These were propounded not in identical 
terms and phrases, not in stereotyped formulas of speech, but in 
all the varieties of terms and phrases best adopted to the diver- 
sified education and training, to the peculiar modes of thinking 
and speaking, of the persons addressed. Still the materials that 
constitute the gospel, with their evidence and claims upon the 
understanding, the conscience and the affections, were fully pre- 
sented in such forms and imagery as were most appreciated by 
the parties addressed."^ 

By wa}^ of illustration, it will be remembered how Mr. 
Campbell gave emphasis to the human side of conver- 
sion. He held that in the soul's union with God there 
was a human coming as well as a divine drawing. So 
emphatically did he affirm this human side of salvation 
that many of his contemporaries misunderstood him and 
most wilfully accused him of not believing in regenera- 
.tion, the divine side. He was only calling attention to 
the much neglected fact of man's freedom, that man is 
active, not passive in coming to God. The fact is that 
there are two sides to the great fact of union with God, 
the Divine drawing and the human coming. But to recog- 
nize the human coming does not destroy the divine grace. 
Nor does the recognition of the divine grace destroy the 
human activity. 

Now it is the same in reference to the Bible There is 
a human element as well as a divine. W. Robertson 

1 Add., p. S35f. 

—156— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Smith bears Mr. Campbell out in his recognition of the 
human element in the Bible. H!e says : "We hear many 
speak of the human side of the Bible as if there was 
something dangerous about it, as if it ought to be kept 
out of sight lest it tempt us to forget that the Bible is 
the Word of God. And there is a widespread feeling 
that, though the Bible no doubt has a human side, a safe 
and edifying exegesis must confine itself to the divine 
side. This point of view is a survival of the mediaeval 
exegesis which buried the true sense of Scripture. 
The first condition of a sound understanding of Scrip- 
ture is to give full recognition to the human side. Nay, 
the whole business of schola/rly exegesis lies with this 
human side."^ 

Bishop Ryle also finds this recognition most benefi- 
cial : "The position of the Bible in the Church of Christ 
is strengthened by every honest endeavor to set forth 
the human elements in its growth and history. The more 
closely we discern the human structure, the more readily 
shall we recognize the presence and power of the Divine 
Spirit, through whom alone it is that the Bible is the 
Word of God to us.'" 

This recognition of the human element in the Bible 
made Mr. Campbell fearless in his demand for new ver- 
sions. It freed him from, that false reverence which so 
prizes the letter that it loses the spirit. The words and 
language for him were but the medium through which 

1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (Smith), p. 12f. 

2 The Canon of the Old Testament (Ryle) , p. 14. 

—157— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

one might have access to the reality of the Divine life. 
This medium changed from age to age as enlighten* 
ment and progress demanded. In all his contentions he 
was v^ell aware of the effect upon his sophisticated con- 
temporaries. He says: 

"Words and names long consecrated and sanctified by long 
prescription have a very imposing influence upon the human 
understanding."^ 

"Our zeal burns brightest when contending for orthodox 
tenets, and a sort of technical language rendered sacred, and 
of imposing influence by long prescription."^ 

It is both interesting and instructive to see how he 
wa^s obliged to reason with the timid non-progressive 
minds in his efforts for a new translation. Besides, it 
throws a vast light on conditions to-day. He makes this 
significant remark: 

"Some are so wedded to the common version, that the very 
defects in it have become sacred; and an effort, however well 
intended, to put them in possession of one incomparably supe- 
rior in propriety, perspicuity, and elegance, is viewed very 
much in the light of making 'a new Bible,' or of 'altering and 
amending the very word of God.' Nay, some are prepared to 
doom every attempt of the kind to the anathema in the conclu- 
sion of the Apocalypse upon those who add to the word of 
God, or subtract from it."^ 

But Mr. Campbell continues to reason with them in 
the words of Dr. Campbell, whom he says expresses his 
own ideas, and much more happily : 

1 C. B., p. 159. 2 ibid., p. 7. 3 i^iv. Or., p. 12. 

—158— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"Many timid, yet well disposed, persons have been appre- 
hensive, that a new translation of the Holy Scriptures might 
tend to diminish the veneration of mankind for those sacred 
oracles, and thereby unsettle their faith in the Christian doc- 
trine. * * * Need I, in so late and enlightened an age, sub- 
join an apology for the design itself of giving a new transla- 
tion of any part of Scripture? Yet there are some knowing 
and ingenious men, who seem to be alarmed at the mention of 
translation, as if such an attempt would sap the very foundation 
of the Christian edifice, and put the faith of the people in the 
most imminent danger of being buried in its ruins. This is 
no new apprehension."^ 

He then notes the apprehension felt over Jerome's 
version, but, says he: 

"The version was made and published; and those 'hideous 
bugbears' of fatal consequences, which had been so much des- 
canted on, were no more heard of."^ 

We are reminded that each age has its "hideous bug- 
bears." But, somehow, in God's good providence the 
next age generally forgets them and the world moves on. 
He then continues to note the alarm felt over the many 
versions which followed the Reformation. He finds that 
men's fears were not justified by the effect which these 
versions produced. For, says he: 

"Nothing will be found to have conduced more to subvert 
the dominion of the metaphysical theology of the schoolmen, 
with all its interminable questions, cobweb distinctions, and 
war of words, than the critical study of the sacred scriptures, 
to which the modern translations have not a little contributed."^ 

Then he pays attention to the objection raised against 

1 Uv. Or., p. 13. 2 Ibid. 3 ibid. 

—159— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the critical work of new translations that they tend to 
unsettle men in their principles especially as to the Bible's 
sacred authority. But he finds it to act the reverse, for, 

"They rather confirm men's faith in scripture, as they show 
in the strongest light that all the various ways which men 
of discordant sentiments have devised of rendering its words, 
have made no material alteration, either on the narrative 
itself or on the divine instructions contained in it."^ 

Those who demand one text only may find their grat- 
ification in the Koran, which has the peculiar merit over 
the Bible of having one stereotyped text inspired and 
fixed for all time! No wonder Carlyle said, upon a dip 
into its rich contents: "A wearisome, confused jumble, 
crude, incondite; endless iterations; long-windedness, 
entanglement; most crude incondite; unsupportable stu- 
pidity, in short ! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry 
any European through the Koran."^ 

Mr. Campbell found these objections were raised sim- 
ply because men were trusting in the merits of the Bible 
form of language rather than in the personal content. 
The voice of God was speaking in the prophets, and 
especially in God's Son. So he concludes his remarks 
to the "feeble-minded" in these words: 

"We oppose them most who most oppose and depart from 
the simplicity of Christ."^ 

He saw that these new translations were only the lan- 
guage expression of the essential content of truth which 
God would speak to His people. This reality would stand 

1 I^iv. Or., p. 14. 2 Religions of the World (Grant), 32. 3 ibid., p. 15. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

a better chance of being arrived at through several trans- 
lations than one, and especially since that one was very 
imperfect. So he says : 

"The weak-minded only are afraid of new translatiorxS, 
or, at most, those who have not touched upon the subject. I 
think the illiterate have stronger faith who read many trans- 
lations than the same class have who read but one. * * * 
Improved translations do not introduce any new articles of 
belief; but they have their value and importance from the 
plainness, force, beauty, and simplicity in which they present 
the testimony of God to the reader."^ 

He is not blind to the effect of such translations upon 
the world of literature. Nor is he one who would allow 
the "Book of Books" to become antiquated or not keep 
pace with a growing literature. He would not have re- 
ligion in its conception and expression fall behind litera- 
ture, science, or the arts. He says : 

"On comparing the literature and science of the current age 
with those of former times, we readily discover how much 
more we owe to a more rigid analysis and a more scrupulous 
adoption of the technical terms and phrases of the old schools, 
to which the whole world at one time looked up as the only 
fountains of wisdom and learning. When submitted to the test 
of a more enlightened criticism, many of their most popular 
and somewhat cabalistic terms and phrases have been demon- 
strated to be words without just or appropriate ideas, and have 
been 'nailed to the counter' as spurious coin; others, however, 
like pure metal in antique forms, have been sent to the mint, 
recast and made to receive the impress of a more enlightened 
and accomplished age. 

1 C. B., p. 326. 

(11) —161— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"The rapid progress and advancement of modern science is, 
I presume, owing to a more rational and philosophical nomen- 
clature and to the more general use of the inductive system of 
reasoning, rather than to any superior talent or more aspiring 
genius possessed either by our contemporaries or our imme- 
diate predecessors. 

"Politics, morals and religion — the most deservedly engross- 
ing themes of every age — are, in this respect, unfortunately 
behind the other sciences and arts cultivated at the present day. 
We are, however, pleased to see a growing conviction of the 
necessity of a more opposite, perspicuous and philosophical ver- 
bal apparatus in several departments of science, and especially 
to witness some recent efforts to introduce a more improved 
terminology in the sciences of government, morality and re- 
ligion."^ 

The new translations, with their new terms and phrases 

agreeing with the new conception of things, would exert 

a great influence in every realm. Ought the book of God 

to be led by literature into the new style or ought it to 

rise up as a leader? says Mr. Campbell, 

"The sacred Scriptures are more generally read than any 
other writings, and exert a greater influence on the diction and 
style of the community and they ought, therefore, to be a model. 
As the original was at least at par, if not something in advance, 
of the age and population in which it appeared, a translation 
of it ought, we think, always to be in the plainest and best 
style of the community for which it is intended. 

"A good style is always a plain and intelligent style. What 
IS sometimes called a learned is rather an unlearned style; 
because true learning is the art of communicating, as well as 
of receiving, instruction — and he that speaks or writes not to 
edification is unlearned in the greatest of all arts, the art of 

1 Add., p. 343f. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

imparting instruction. It has often been observed, that it re- 
quires more real learning to make a plain and intelligible dis- 
course, than to make one vulgarly called learned. Indeed, there 
are not wanting some persons, in every community, who appre- 
ciate a discourse because it transcends their comprehension, and 
regard him as the greatest scholar who uses the most learned 
and rare terms and phrases."^ 

This need for a new version became with him a grow- 
ing conviction. With the new conception of things on 
the one hand, and the antiquated expressions in the au- 
thorized version, on the other hand, he was feeling what 
President King notes :^ "If the man of to-day, there- 
fore, is really alive to the movements of his own time, it 
is simply impossible that he should use most naturally 
and easily the language of the older generations in ex- 
pressing his deepest convictions on any theme." 

One of his objections to the authorized version was 
that it had outHved its usefulness. It was not in fashion. 
Mr. Campbell was one who wanted even his truth rigged 
out in the best possible style. Yet, after a half century 
and more of such profound agitation and after the new 
has come, we print the old King James version in our 
Sunday School quarterlies, and the superintendent leads 
the school in reading it (because the word "authorized" 
printed above it gives it sanction and sacredness) ; we 
hug it reverently to our hearts in devotions; and in 
some localities we demand of the minister his reading 
from the pulpit out of the big Bible that lays on the 
sacred desk ! Mr. Campbell goes on in his objectionSy 

1 I<iv. Or., p. 75. 2 Reconstruction in Theology, p. 41. 

—163— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

"Our whole phraseology on religious topics is affected by 
the antiquated style of the common version. Hence we have 
been constrained to adopt a name for this style, to distinguish 
it from the good style of persons well educated in our mother 
tongue. This old-fashioned style we call the sacred style; yet 
this sacred style was the common style in the reign of James."* 

How grotesque this is appears in the fact which he 
cites : 

"The old Gothic buildings in North and South Britain aie 
generally places of worship; hence, although this style of archi- 
tecture was once as common in England and Scotland as any 
of the present models, yet this style being preserved only, or 
almost exclusively, in the places of worship which the venera- 
tion of our ancestors preserved from dilapidation, has given a 
sacred aspect to places of worship, and has rendered the Gothic 
style of architecture as sacred as the obsolete style of King 
Henry or King James. Had it not been for the veneration 
shown to places of worship, not a specimen of the Gothic style 
would at this day have stood upon the British Isles; and had 
it not been the same species of veneration, we should not have 
had at this time any book, sacred or profane, written or pub- 
lished in the style of the sixteenth century. * * * They 
(antiquated terms and phrases) have yielded their places to 
another race in our writing and speeches, except in the pulpit 
or synagogue — ^why not also in the sacred writings? We might 
as reasonably contend that men should appear in the public 
assemblies for worship with long beards, in Jewish or Roman 
garments, as that the Scripture should be handed to us in a 
style perfectly antiquated, and consequently less intelligible. 
* * * For is the Kingdom of God become words or sylla- 
bles? Why should we be •in bondage to them if we may be 
free?"2 

1 Reconstruction in Theology, p. 76. 2 i^iv. Or., p. 78f. 

—164— 



Alexandef Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Again he says: 

"A living language is continually changing. Like the fash- 
ions and customs in apparel, words and phrases at one time 
current and fashionable, in the lapse of time become awkward 
and obsolete. But this is not all. Many of them, in a century 
or two, come to have a signification very different from that 
which was once attached to them. Nay, some are known to 
convey ideas not only different from, but contrary to their first 
signification."^ 

So Mr. Campbell is able to say of his own efforts in 
translating that he had produced one "in a style so mod- 
ernized, and yet so simple, exact, and faithful to the 
original" that it commends itself to the intelligence of 
the people. He fears opposition and lack of response only 
from the ''weak-minded," for says he, 

"From persons of sound biblical learning and candor, we 
have nothing to fear; but from all bigots and illiberal critics 
we expect the same coarse treatment which has fallen to the 
lot of every translation from Jerome's time till the present 
day."'^ 

And were the translators of the Twentieth Century 
New Testament to join Mr. Campbell in this sentiment 
they would extend the date to 1904! And were one to 
make a missionary tour among the churches he might 
in many unmodernized communities put the date 1909 as 
to all versions except the authorized ! 

Mr. Campbell was not merely defending his own at- 
tempt, for he says : 

1 I.iv. Or.,p. 3. 2 Ibid., 326. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"I am always prepared to defend not only the New Version 
which I have published, but the necessity of new versions for 
the confirmation of the faith and the enlargement of the views 
of Christians."^ 

New translations are needed from time to time as the 
progressive development and growing conceptions of the 
age require. He therefore enlarges upon his reasons for 
new versions. He says : 

"The living tongues of earth, like living men, are continually 
changing. Dictionaries, like historians, transmit the past to the 
future. Hence both the necessity and the means of substitut- 
ing correct words and phrases for those that have, from the 
attrition and waste of time, lost their original value, become 
uncurrent, and passed out of use. Even Shakespeare and his 
contemporary poets, orators and authors now require glossaries, 
or the substitution of modern terms for those which they have 
used that are now become obsolete and unintelligible. The 
common version of Scriptures was made and completed six 
years before the death of the great English poet. It, there- 
fore, has also acquired the rust of the Elizabethan age, al- 
though occasionally since polished by hands we know not of."^ 

This same recognition of change which Mr. Campbell 
is emphasizing is the burden of that timely article on 
"The Apostolic Service" by Dr. Willett, where he says: 
"Truth never changes, but its forms and appearances are 
ever varying. Like Proteus, the old man of the sea, it 
never appears twice in the same guise. Each generation 
goes to school to new teachers, as if all the world were 
in its morning-time.'^ But Mr. Campbell continues : 

1 C. B., p. 660. 2 Add., 677. S Christian Cent., Nov. 22, 1906. 

—166— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"Passages of Scripture will, translated into any one language 
in one age, cease to be a correct and intelligible translation to 
the people of another age. * * * The common version was 
gotten up some two and a half centuries since, under prelat- 
ical, hierarchical and royal patronage and restrictions. The ver- 
nacular of that day, spoken and written, was, in orthography, 
punctuation, and in much of its common wording, quite differ- 
ent from that of the present day. The knowledge of the orig- 
inal tongues then possessed was proportionally more than two 
centuries behind that of the present day, and their general lit- 
erature and science were still more deficient. * * * g^j; 
why argue this case further? The many marginal readings of 
recondite terms in our numerous and various commentaries, 
and in our family Bibles and Testaments, the labors of in- 
numerable pulpit orators and lecturers, expended every Lord's 
day in correcting and explaining the text in all the synagogues 
in our land; alike demonstrate the need of a new version, and 
our ability to furnish it, — first by selecting a well authenticated 
original text, and then by giving an exact, perspicuous and 
faithful translation of it, and that, too, in a pure, chaste and 
elegant Anglo-Saxon style. That our age and contemporaries 
are equal to this is quite as evident as that the Greek and 
Roman classics have been and can again be so translated by 
competent scholars."^ 

It is well to be reminded that words and language 
do not fall ready-made, like snow-flakes from the heavens 
upon the heads of individuals. They are wrought out in 
the experience of personal souls who feel, and then create 
language to express to others what is felt. And since 
this experience is growing experience — personal progres- 
sive souls feeling, there is constant need of new language 

1 Add., p. 613f. 

—167— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

or thought-forms to convey the newiy felt, because the 
old thought-forms do not grow. The old conceptions 
will not only cease to convey the fresh experience but 
will burst, like the old wine skins filled with new wine, 
under the pressure of the test and fall away from shees 
inability. While the soul expression with renewed beauty 
and power stands forth dressed in new language. But 
\it, too, must soon pass away, for the soul is ever becom- 
ing. Therefore, language, which is but a fixed thought- 
scheme for conveying thoughts and feelings, must ever 
be changing to answer the demands of the growing soul 
struggling for expression. This is why the old trans- 
lations fail to satisfy. The new translation, with its 
new conceptions, is inevitable, because God's self-revela- 
tion is progressive. The completely personal God is 
revealing himself to the partially personal creature who 
is becoming like him. Hence the Bible is never a dead 
letter, but always a living spirit. 

So interpretation not only borders on, but enters into 
translation. Therefore, Mr. Campbell can say: 

"The great science of interpretation, strange to tell, like good 
wine, improves from age to age. Not, indeed, the scriptural 
gift of interpretation; but the literary and acquired gift of 
exposition and elucidation is matured and perfected from better 
means and better learning now possessed — the product and 
growth of a revived and reviving literature."^ 

He is thus enabled to establish his plea for new trans- 
lations upon even better grounds than that of style, 

1 Add., p. 577. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

structure and composition. The authorized version he 
finds to be deeply penetrated with the interpretation of 
biased translators. He says: 

"They have come to us in a translation, and in an imper- 
fect translation, by no means equal, in clearness and force, to 
the original. * * * They read the originals through the 
spectacles of their vernacular versions, and, superadded to this, 
through a ready-made theology, imparted to them by early edu- 
cation and high authority — parental or ministerial, or both. It 
has become part and parcel of their individuality. Few can 
divest themselves of it. It is harder, far, to unlearn than to 
learn — to divest ourselves of old errors than to acquire new 
truths. Still, it is our duty, as it is our safety and our honor, 
to take the living oracles (Hebrew and Greek originals), and, 
with an unveiled face, an unblenching eye and an honest heart, 
to learn and study what God has spoken to us."^ 

This is the same feeling that spurred on Erasmus in 
his labors. No wonder some thought Mr. Campbell was 
doing the work of a destructive critic. Just look at the 
situation. The people had only one Bible. This was 
the "old family Bible that lay on the stand." This they 
implicitly believed to be the word of God from lid to lid. 
And here in their midst was the daring critic, Alexander 
Cambpell, telling them that this only cherished Bible 
of theirs was not what they thought it to be. It is a 
wonder that Mr. Campbell had not become strangely 
silent for fear he might overthrow the faith of some. 
But his interests were lined up with truth and he feared 
not the outcome of truth. Those who turned a deaf ear 

1 Add., p. 569, 

—169— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

to what Mr. Campbell was pointing out kept on in the 
old, narrow orthodox way. Those who walked in the 
wake of his new-shed light were termed Campbellites. 
Campbell-lights, I imagine, because of the light shed 
about them by Campbell! 

But he does not stop with insinuations or mild attacks 
upon their decayed orthodox ideas. He simply pours it 
on. He says: 

"The common version was made at a time when religious 
controversy was at its zenith; and that the tenets of the trans- 
lators, whether designedly or undesignedly, did, on many occa- 
sions, give a wrong turn to words and sentences bearing upon 
their favorite dogma."^ 

Moreover, 

"King James' version is, at most, but a correction, not, in- 
deed, always an amended correction, of the version of Wm. 
Tindal."* 

And again, 

"The King's translators have frequently erred in attempting 
to be, what some would call, literally correct. They have not 
given the meaning in some passages where they have given a 
literal translation.'" 

He sums up his objections in the critical findings of 
Dr. Macknight. They are (1) often differing from the 
Hebrew to follow the seventy, or German, translations; 
(2) following the Vulgate Latin and adopting many of 
the original words without translation — hence unintelli- 

1 lyiv. Or., p. 7. 2 Add., p. 584. 3 Uv. Dr., p. 10. 

— X70— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

gible; (3) keeping too close to Hebrew and Greek idioms 
— hence obscure ; (4) a little too complaisant to the king 
— favoring his dogma ; ( 5 ) partial, speaking the language 
of, and giving authority to one sect ; (6) where the orig- 
inal admits of different translations, the worse incor- 
porated in the text and the better often thrown into the 
margin; (7) many passages mistranslated. 

"Besides this" [adds Mr. Campell], "the divisions of the 
scriptures of the New Testament into chapters and verses by 
Romanists of small learning, and less intelligence in the mean- 
ing of the inspired writings, in imitation of the Jewish rabbin's 
division of the Old Testament, has been long complained of 
by all the judicious and intelligent scripturians of the last cen- 
tury."* 

Mr. Campbell, under the theme, "The Word of God," 

expresses himself so freely, considering his ag^^ that not 
to give it entire would ruin its exquisite sensibleness and 
mar its classic beauty. He says : 

"So badly taught are many Christians that they cannot think 
that any translation of the scriptures deserves the title of the 
Word of God except that of King James. The translators of 
the King's version did not themselves think so, as we have 
shown most conclusively by publishing their own preface — on 
which preface we have some remarks to make, at a more con- 
venient time. But to the intelligent reader no remarks are 
necessary to show that they had very different ideas of their 
version, from those which this generation have formed. Have 
the French, the Spanish, the German, and all the nations of 
Europe, save the English, no Word of God? If King James' 

1 c. B., p. 161. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

version is the only Word of God on earth, then all the nations 
who speak any other language than the English have no Rev- 
elation. 

"Much of the reasoning of both priests and people, on this 
subject, is as silly as that of an old lady who, for many years, 
has beea deprived of her reason, from whom we heard the 
other day. She once had a sound judgment, and still has a 
retentive memory, though she has not been compos mentis one 
day in twenty years. Her husband was reading in the new 
version the cure of the blind man (Mark viii :24). He came 
to these words : *I see men whom I can distinguish from trees 
only by their walking.' In the King's version, 1 see men as 
trees, walking.' After reading these words he paused, and 
observed to the old lady, to elicit a reply, 'How much better 
this, than the old version.' 'That is a good explanation,' said 
she, 'but it is not the scriptures, not the Word of God/ So 
our good logicians reason. 

"I would thank some of those ignorant declaimers to tell us 
where the Word of God was before the reign of King James! 
Had they no divine book before this good King, in consequence 
of the Hampton Conference, summoned his wise men? Yes; 
they had version after version, each of which, in its turn, ceased 
to be 'Word of God' when a new one was given. This I say 
after the manner of these declaimers. Our good forefathers, 
two hundred and fifty years ago, read and preached from a 
different version, which they venerated in their day, as our 
compeers venerate James' Bible. The English language has 
changed, and the original tongues are better understood now 
than then. The common version is, as many good and learned 
men have said, quite obsolete in its language, and in many 
places very defective in giving the ideas found in the original 
scriptures. Taken as a whole, it has outlived its day at least 
one century, and, like a superannuated man, has failed to be as 
lucid and as communicative as in its prime- 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"There is no version in any language that does not clearly 
communicate the same great facts, and make the path of bliss 
a plain and easy found one; but there is an immense differ- 
ence in the force, beauty, clearness, and intelligibility of the 
different versions now in use. And that King James' version 
needs a revision is just as plain to the learned and biblical 
student as that the Scotch and English used in the sixteenth 
century is not the language now spoken in these United States. 
And this may be made as plain to the common mind as it is 
that the coat which suited the boy of twelve will not suit the 
same person when forty years old. As the boy grows from his 
coat, so do we from the language of our ancestors."^ 

Mr. Campbell received the following letter: 

"Dear sir: 

"One of our teachers in this county has refused to 
have the new translation read in public meeting because 
it is not the word of God, alleging that the common ver- 
sion is received as the word of God, but that the new 
translation Is not considered such. Pray, whose word 
shall we call it? Answer this, please, for some of us are 
in doubt upon this subject. Yours truly, 

''Candidus.'' 

In his reply, which we give in part, Mr. Campbell in- 
dulges in the following irony : 

"Your teacher was certainly right, and you should all pas- 
sively submit to his determination. For the common version 
is the Word of God, but the new translation is not. The rea- 
son I will now tell you. The common version was made by 
forty-nine persons authorized by a King, paid for their trouble 
by the King, and when their work was published, the King 

4 C. B., o. 540. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

ordered it to be read as the Word of God in public assemblies 
and in families, to the exclusion of every other version. Now 
all the versions that were read before this King's reign ceased 
to be the Word of God when the King signed the decree ; and 
from that moment the King's version became the word of God. 
You will see, then, that there are two things necessary to con- 
stitute any translation the Word of God: first, that it be 
authorized by a King and his court; and, again, that it be fin- 
ished by forty-nine persons. Every translation becomes the 
word of God, according to the number of persons that make it. 
iThus, if one hundred persons made a translation it would be 
doubly more the word of God than that made by the forty- 
nine, and four times more than that made by twenty-five, and 
thirty-three times and one-third more than the new version, 
provided it was so decreed by a King. For you must remember 
that both are necessary, and that if a thousand men should 
agree to make a version, it would not when made be the word 
of God, because it wanted the royal approbation. You will 
naturally conclude, from these plain facts, that if one man or 
three men should most exactly and perfectly translate the orig- 
inal Greek and correct many errors and inaccuracies in the 
King's translation, it would nevertheless still be the word of 
man; for all the errors, inaccuracies and imperfections in the 
common version are the word of God, and the correction of 
them all, or any number of them, by only one man or three 
men, would be no more than the word of man. This, sir, is 
not only sound, but most orthodox logic. It would, therefore, 
be a profanation of the pulpit, and the holy place, to read 
within thirty yards of it, the new version. If it be read at all, 
it ought to be at least beyond the graveyard, or outside of all 
the consecrated ground. It may be read in families, just like 
'Robinson Crusoe' or any other romance; but never with the 
veneration of a sermon-book, and infinitely less of the word of 
God."^ 

1 C. B.,p.345f. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Yet, after more than half a century of such pleading, 
a dear sister, a contender for the faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints,, greeted the minister as he stepped 
from the pulpit one beautiful Lord's day morning, with 
the warm, heart-felt demand that he read no more the 
new version of the Bible because those higher critics 
who had gotten it up so shocked her nerves! But said 
she, "Read that pulpit Bible ; that's what it is there for ; 
read that good old King James authorized version which 
we know to be the word of God!" Let me add, this 
sister is a great stickler for the fathers, enthusiastic in 
following in their footsteps, and an ardent lover of Alex- 
ander Campbell! 

Such a large place has been given to this part of 
Mr. Campbell's labors for the comfort of the brothers in 
the ministry. Not because the King James version is 
now in the air as it was in Mr. Campbell's day. Yet in 
many congregations of Disciples the air is thick with 
this authorized version. So much so that the revised and 
the Standard versions are looked at askance. Even if 
the question of the authorized version be not under con- 
sideration in the reader's locality, Mr. Campbell's com- 
mon sense and keen logic, which he here so dexterously 
displays, are fully as applicable to other problems that 
are up for consideration. 

One is impressed upon studying the tremendous efforts 
Mr. Campbell put forth in this department of work, of 
the long time required for the truth to become the prop- 
erty of all. This is partly to be accounted for in that 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

the first approach of truth is new and strange. As Dr. 
Selleck says:^ "A new idea is liable to shock, disturb, 
and perhaps alarm us, if not indeed to arouse our angry 
opposition ; but later, when we become acquainted with it 
and find it a friend instead of an enemy, we assent to its 
claims, embrace it^ and let it enrich our lives." While it 
is true that some close their eyes to the light of glorious 
day and retire into the dark regions of willful ignorance 
and superstition, yet this is not true of the mass of men 
and women. The common people are in the main open 
to the truth and are demanding reality. Honesty char- 
acterizes the mass. There is a cause for the unreceptivity 
of the people. The real cause is found in the fact that 
each age has its bigots, religious bosses, who along with 
their inordinate ambition to lord it over God's flock have 
such a smattering of merely intellectual knowledge as 
to win the hearts of the people through a showy brilliancy 
and keep their prejudices whetted and ready always for 
defense and offense. Such was the age and fate of 
Jesus. Such was Mr. Campbell's day. Such, in part, 
is ours. 

Another excellent thing about Mr. Camhpell is that 
he did not depreciate the better spirit of his times. That 
there were eminent critics in his day, who in character 
and ability were far superior to any previous, he never 
doubted. This confidence gave him a most optimistic 
outlook on the future of the Bible, and consequently the 
welfare of the church. 

1 The New Appreciation of the Bible, p. 227. 

—176— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Many were willing to rest in the wisdom of the past; 
nay, more, even felt it to be impious and sacrilegious 
even to raise the question that their age had grown wiser 
or was more competent to give the world a better word 
of God. To such the Bible was a closed book. What 
had served their fathers was good enough for them; 
just as it was, with all its inelegancies, inaccuracies, and 
sectarian phraseologies. One fellow said that it didn't 
make any difference to him how inaccurate it was in 
style, etc., since he never got time to notice those things. 
This reminds one of the old farmer over in Canada 
to whom the newspaper agent from Toronto tried, but 
failed, to sell a weekly paper for one dollar a year. In 
talking with him the agent learned that he knew noth- 
ing about Queen Victoria's death or King Edward's 
coronation. "But," said the old farmer, "these things 
don't make any difference to me; I'm always too busy, 
making a living, to read them." 

Not so with Mr. Campbell. He not only wanted his 
religious ideas served up in the most elegant fashion and 
according to the most modern and approved methods, 
but he lived in the conviction that the 19th century had 
the critical ability to grant this. He says : 

"We are now in possession of much better means of making 

an exact translation than they were at the time when the com- 
mon version appeared. The original is now much better under- 
stood than it was then. The conflicts of so many critics have 
(12) —177— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

elicited a great deal of sound critical knowledge which was 
not in the possession of any translators before the last cen- 
tury."^ 

In an address before the American Bible Union, held 
in New York in 1850, in a plea for a new version of the 
Bible, he said : 

"The word of God was not, a century or two since, as well 
understood as it is now, by the most enlightened and reformed 
portions of Protestant Christendom. Biblical literature, criti- 
cism and science, since the times of Wickliffe, Tindal, Luther, 
Calvin, Zuinglius, Beza, Cranmer, Coverdale, Archbishop Par- 
ker, Edward VI. or James I., have greatly advanced. The 
last seventy-five years have contributed more to real Biblical 
learning — have given to the Christian Church larger and better 
means of translating the original Scriptures — than had accu- 
mulated from the days of Tindal to the era of the American 
revolution. 

"We are, therefore, better prepared to give a correct and 
faithful version of the Sacred Scriptures, at this day, than at 
any former period since the revival of literature. We have 
also a more correct- original from which to translate than they 
had at any former period since the art of printing was invented. 
The Greek text of the New Testament has been subjected to 
the most laborious investigation; and, after the most rigid scru- 
tiny and comparison, a much more accurate original h&* oeen 
obtained. With these advantages in our favor, we are better 
furnished than at any former period to enter upon a work of 
such awful and momentous magnitude and responsibility."^ 

In an address before the Bible Union convention, at 
Memphis, Tenn., 1852, he said: 

"The labors bestowed upon the original text, ascertaining the 
1 Iviv. Or., p. 9. 2 Add., p. 615. 

—178— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

genuine readings of passages of doubtful interpretation, and 
tlie great advances made in the whole science of hermeneutics 
— the established laws of translation — since the commencement 
of the present century, fully justify the conclusion that we are, 
or may be, much better furnished for the work of interpreta- 
tion than any one, however gifted by nature and by education, 
could have been, not merely fifty, but almost two hundred and 
fifty, years ago. The living critics and translators of the pres- 
ent day, in Europe and America, are like Saul amongst the 
people — head and shoulders above those of the early part of the 
seventeenth century. 

"As for honesty, we ought not, perhaps, to say anything. 
But we may presume to say, without the charge of arrogance 
or invidious comparison, that we are not greatly inferior to 
them. And if in talent and education, compared with the mod- 
erns, they were giants, still, as pigmies standing upon the shoul- 
ders of giants, we ought to see farther than those upon whose 
shoulders we place ourselves. Biblical criticism is now much 
more a science than it was in A. D. 1600, so soon after the 
revival of literature. A far greater number of Biblical critics 
has succeeded than preceded the Protestant Reformation, and 
of a much higher order. Before that era there was not one 
good Greek or Hebrew critic for one hundred at the present 
day. The Papal Romans were merely Roman scholars, and 
yet inferior to the Pagan Romans. These are facts so gen- 
erally known and conceded that it is not necessary to dwell 
upon them. The art of printing, with the increased number 
of theological seminaries, and the competition between Roman- 
ists and Protestants, and between the leading Protestant par- 
ties themselves, with the facilities of a more enlarged inter- 
course amongst learned men, could not otherwise than elevate 
the standard of Biblical scholarship and afford greater facili- 
ties for acquiring Biblical learning. 

"Corresponding with this, the vigorous impulse given to the 

—179— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

human mind by the rapid progress in the sciences and in the 
arts merely physical and intellectual, the great increase of new 
discoveries and general improvement in the social system, sus- 
tained by the facilities of the press, have all contributed to a 
higher intellectual development and a more thorough scholar- 
ship than were ever attained by the Greek or Roman schisms, 
or by any Protestant denomination anterior to the era of the 
common version. Indeed, one may affirm, without the fear of 
successful contradiction, that during the last hundred years, 
on the Continent of Europe, in Great Britain, and in the United 
States of America, Biblical criticism. Biblical learning and Bib- 
lical translation have advanced, in every essential characteris- 
tic and accompaniment, much more, in what is usually called 
Christendom, than was practicable or possible anterior to that 
date, 

"A more suitable time, therefore, has never been, since the 
era of the Anglo-Saxon language, since the rise of the Papal 
defection, than the present, for a corrected and improved ver- 
sion of the Jewish and Christian oracles, in the living Anglo- 
Saxon language of the present day."^ 

One thing is certain, Alexander Campbell, in his 
never-flinching agitation for a better Bible during the 
19th Century, helped, in no small degree, to beat down 
the prejudice in the way, and give to the world the revised 
Bible which we now enjoy. He believed it would come 
because it was needed, and because it had the sanction 
of Heaven! To its aid he lent prophetic voice! With 
voice and pen he pleaded the enterprise ! And it came ! 
And thus coming, it came from God ! Not falling down 
from the skies, but rising up out of personal souls made 
in the image of God and touched and inspired by His 

1 Add., p. 583f, 

—ISO— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

presence ! So do, and so will, all good things come from 
God, if they be in line with His progressive order. 

The Christian Century of March 19, 1903, sounds a 
timely Campbellian note: "The failure on the part of 
some of the professed followers of Campbell to appre- 
ciate the literary and historical method of Bible study 
shows how far in advance this great thinker was of his 
time. The Disciples of Christ as a body will not give 
up the vantage ground which was gained by this great 

leader To make the Bible vital in this age 

of scientific investigation and literary criticism, it is ab- 
solutely necessary to follow the leadership of such great 
thinkers as Mr. Campbell and to advocate the historical 
and literary study of the Bible in all our churches. . . . 
A clearer vision of Christ and Christianity cannot be ob- 
tained by dogmatic discussions or personal criticisms. 
It can only be obtained by reverent literary and historical 
study of the Bible and of Christian history. Let the 
Disciples of Christ lead out in this great work and pre- 
pare our young men thoroughly in the knowledge of the 
word of God and of Christian history, as thoroughly as 
Mr. Campbell and some of his noble coadjutors were 
prepared, and we will do more to hasten the day of unity 
of the spirit and the knowledge of the Son of God among 
all Christians than in any other way." 



^181— 



I 



CHAPTER IV. 

Coming to the Bible 



What to us are the petty questions we have been dealing 
with, if God is our Father indeed? Will he be less our Father 
because certain records of the past have been composed or mis- 
understood in the process of compilation? Is his love lessened 
because what we imagined to be literal fact turns out to be 
pregnant and splendid parable? Does his character change 
because our interpretations of past facts or the interpretations 
of those who went before us have been mistaken? These ques- 
tions answer themselves. Indeed, if we are wise and willing 
to be led onwards by the teaching of God's providence, shall 
we not see that the whole drift and tendency of criticism is 
to help us upward as well as forward? The effect of the criti- 
cism which has undermined previously accepted views has been 
to correct a great deal of once common literalism of interpre- 
tation: the knowledge which comes to us comes to deliver us 
from notions which were in danger of becoming too mechan- 
ical : the interpretations put into our hands are wider in range 
and more ethical in scope : everything is preaching to us that 
we need to become more spiritually minded if we are to under- 
stand the ways and teachings of God. In times like our own, 
when men afraid of trusting the living God are seeking to 
base their faith upon gross materialistic notions, is it not well 
that the disintegration of crude ideas which criticism brings 
should bring us back to those words of our Lord, which, though 
constantly ignored, are yet as constantly needed by the 
Church? "The hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor 
in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. The hour cometh, 
and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father 
in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and they that worship 
him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21-24.) 
— W. Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon (An Intro, to the Study 
of the Scriptures, p. 151). 



—184— 



CHAPTER IV. 
COMING TO THE BIBLE. 

The 20th Century feels that it is not quite enough to 
sit before the great masterpieces of antiquity and enjoy 
them. The studio must be resurrected with its crude 
forms, tools, and whole atmosphere, that the ardent be- 
holder may enter with sympathetic appreciation into the 
very innermost thoughts and feelings of the artist. The 
artist is not only known by his finished production, but 
this is understood to a considerable degree in the way 
in which he performed his work. In order to form a 
correct estimation of Mr. Campbell or enjoy the product 
of his brain, it is necessary to watch the critic as he 
works. 

We have seen him turning his back upon the old Cath- 
olic conservative tendency, which, in Prof. Brown's put- 
ting,^ is "reverent of the past, tenacious of its traditions, 
distrustful of the individual ;" and turning to the Protest- 
ant position, which is "the liberal tendency, living in the 
present, intent upon progress, full of faith in the indi- 
vidual man." 

After Mr. Campbell has once restored the Bible, 
translated as perfectly as human, fallible men may be 

1 Christian Theology in Outline, p. 70. 

—185— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

able to render it, he recognizes the fact that this is still 
but a small part of the immense process of knowing the 
will of God, or hearing his voice. The Bible must be 
understood. It must be interpreted. He proceeds to 
this task upon the principle granted him by a true 
Protestantism, i. e., the liberty of the individual to go back 
to the source and penetrate it with his own vision, instead 
of taking his interpretation over bodily from the fathers. 
Relative to this, he says : 

"But 'the fathers' are often urged as decisive evidence, super- 
seding the necessity of farther inquiry. All sects have their 
fathers, to whom they are not wont to appeal."^ 

He notes the decree of the Council of Trent, which 
declares that : 

"It belongs to the church to judge of the true sense 
and interpretation of scripture; and that no person shall 
dare to interpret it in matters relating to faith and man- 
ners to any sense contrary to that which the church has 
held, or contrary to the unanimous consent of the fath- 
ers." 

Mr. Campbell replies as follows : 

"Here, then, we have the essential elements of mental slavery 
and degradation; for, if no person dare to interpret the Scrip- 
tures contrary to what the church has already held, or to the 
unanimous consent of the Fathers; where is that liberty of 
thought and speech and action, on the most important of all sub- 
jects, our moral and religious relations, without which, liberty is 
without meaning, and mental independence but a name \ * * * 

1 c. B., p, 462. 

— 18fi— 



^Alexmider Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

"The fact of putting the Bible under a bushel, of forbidding 
the reading of it, of swearing forever to interpret it as it has been 
interpreted, of not permitting men to think or speak for them- 
selves on religion * * * jg the paragon of supreme tyranny, 
never surpassed, never equaled on earth.'"^ 

"The plea of ancient tradition is the strength of Popery and the 
weakness of Protestantism. We advocate not ancient, but origi- 
nal Christianity. The plea of high antiquity or tradition has long 
been the bulwark of errors. It cleaves to its beloved mother, 
TRADITION , hoary Tradition, with an affection that increases 
as she becomes old and feeble. Errorists of all schools are ex- 
ceedingly devout and dutiful so far as the precept, 'Honor thy 
father and thy mother,' is concerned."^ 

One reformation begets another reformation. Just as 
soon as a pure word of God is translated there must be 
the further effort of understanding it aright. So Mr. 
Campbell, in the face of traditional methods, felt that: 

"A reformation in the manner of handling the living oracles 
is much wanted; and the sooner and more generally it is at- 
tempted, the greater will be the regenerating influence of the 
brotherhood on the world." ^ 

Speaking of the lost gospel, he finds it largely due to 
a false, yea, blind, interpretation. He says : 

"The meaning of this institution (Gospel) has been buried un- 
der the rubbish of human traditions for hundreds of years. It 
was lost in the dark ages, and has never been, till recently, dis- 
interred. Various efforts have been made, and considerable 
progress attended them; but since the Grand Apostasy was com- 
pleted, till the present generation, the gospel of Jesus Christ has 
not been laid open to mankind in its original plainness, sim- 
plicity and majesty. A veil in reading the New Institution has 

1 D. on R. C. R., p. 279f. 2 Bapt., p. 233. 3 Ch. Sys., 306. 

—187— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

been on the hearts of Christians, as Paul declares it was upon the 
hearts of the Jews in reading the Old Institution toward the close 
of that economy."^ 

"But what kind of a reformation is requisite to this end? It is 
not the erection of a new sect, the invention of new shibboleths, 
or the setting up of a new creed, nor the adopting of any in ex- 
istence save the New Testament, in the form in which it pleased 
the spirit of God to give it. It is to receive it as it stands, and to 
make it its own interpretation, according to the ordinary rules of 
interpreting all books. * * * Recollect, we say the Scriptures 
are to be their own interpreter, according to the common rules 
of interpreting other writings."^ 

Hence he would not come to the Bible as many were 
coming, theologically prepossessed; with minds already 
confirmed as to what the Bible is and what it means. On 
the contrary, he zvould come to if as to any other book 
and let it speak for itself. Upon this common, practical, 
individual principle, he proceeds, as he finds illustration 
in the personal. He says: 

"When one person addresses another, he supposes the person 
addresses competent to interpret his words. * * * (go God) 
proceeded upon the principle that they were, by this native art, 
competent interpreters of his expressions. * * * The fact 
that God has clothed his communications in human language, and 
that he has spoken by men, to men, in their own language, is de- 
cisive evidence that he is to be understood as one man con- 
versing with another."^ 

This method of approach to the Bible became a deter- 
minative and formulative factor in Mr. Campbell's un- 
derstanding of the scriptures, destructive of all those 

I Ch. Sys., p. 192. 8 C. B„ p. 41f. 3 Bapt., p. SOf. 

—188— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

mystical attempts to make the Bible out entirely super- 
human, and hence totally unlike other literature. In 
fact, this recognition of the human element in the Bible, 
cataloging it among the world's noble literature, placed 
him in line with the world's best scholars and Biblical 
critics, and gave him the use of the historical method 
that the Bible might speak for and interpret itself. 
Windelband, in tracing the development of historical 
Biblical criticism, which was begun by Semler, says: 
''This began to carry out the thought formulated by 
Spinoza, that the Biblical books must be treated just as 
other writings, as regards their theoretical contents, their 
origin, and their history; that they must be understood 
from the point of view of their time and the character 
of their authors."^ 

Mr. Campbell comes to the Bible to know its contents 
not only with the freedom of the individual understand- 
ing, but that understanding must be an intelligent under- 
standing, furnished with the best possible equipment. In 
other words, he must be free to avail himself of the 
ablest scholarship of the day in directing his interpreta- 
tion of the Bible. He would turn upon its pages all pos- 
sible light from every quarter. This enabled him, instead 
of coming to the Bible traditionally prepossessed, or in 
a haphazard way, with no method, to come to it as a 
Biblical critic and put to use the scientific method of un- 
derstanding the scriptures historically. 

The first application of this rule discloses that the Bible 

1 A Hist, of Philosophy, p. 498. 

—189— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

is a human book. To understand it one must come, then, 
with the same rules used in interpreting other litera- 
ture. So he says: 

"God has spoken by men, for men. The language of the Bible 
is, then, human language. It is, therefore, to be examined by 
the same rules which are applicable to the language of any other 
book, and to be understood according to the true and proper 
meaning of the words, in their current acceptation, at the times 
and in the places in which they were originally written and 
translated, * * * f^ adopt any other course, or to apply any 
other rules, would necessarily divest the sacred writings of every 
attribute that belongs to the idea of revelation. It must never 
be forgotten in perusing the Bible that in the structure of sen- 
tences, in figures of speech, in the arrangement and use of words, 
it differs not at all from other writings ; and must therefore be 
understood and interpreted as they are."^ 

"There is no opinion or notion which is more prejudicial to an 
intimate acquaintance with these writings than that of the 
Egyptian priests, introduced into the first theological school at 
Alexandria, and carried throughout Christendom, viz., 'that 
the words of Scripture have a mystical, spiritual, theological, or 
some other than a literal meaning; and that the same rules of 
interpretation are not to be applied to the inspired writings, which 
are applied to human composition;' than which no opinion is 
more absurd and pernicious. If this notion were correct, all ef- 
forts to understand the book must be in vain, until God sends us 
an interpreter who can resolve these enigmas and mystic words 
of theological import, and give us the plain meaning of what the 
Apostles and Evangelists wrote. The reader will consider that, 
when God spoke to man, he adopted the language of man."^ 

"We will take the hook (Biblos) and examine what is written 
there, by the same criteria which we would apply in analysis of 

1 Bapt., p. 54f. 2 i^iv. Dr., p. 16f. 

—190— 



i 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the writings of Cicero, of Demosthenes, of Sallust, or of Xeno- 
phon."i 

"When we enter into an examination of the testimony on 
which rehgion is founded, we have no other scientific rules to 
resort to, than those which regulate and govern us in ascertain- 
ing the weight of all historic evidence. * * * But men ap- 
proach the examination of this question, not as they approach the 
examination of any other. The believer and the unbeliever ap- 
proach it under great disadvantages. Religious men are afraid 
to call its truth in question. This religious awe acts as a sort of 
illusion on their minds. The skeptics are prejudiced against it. 
This prejudice disqualifies them to judge fairly and impartially 
upon the merits of the evidence. The religious awe of the Chris- 
tian and the prejudices of the skeptic are real obstacles in the 
way of both, in judging impartially of the weight of evidence in 
favor of this or any other position, at the bottom of Christian 
faith. * * * It is hard for any man to inspect this oracle 
with that degree of impartiality and mental independence neces- 
sary to demonstrate, or discriminate, in its truth. * * * Mak- 
ing all due allowance for these odds and disadvantages against 
us, and acknowledging that we claim no exemption from the in- 
fluence of these courses, we are disposed to approach this volume, 
as far as in us lies, without being influenced by that awe, or 
those prejudices, of which we have been speaking. Divesting 
ourselves, therefore, of all partialities, pro or con, let us, my 
friends, approach this position. * * * They [writers of the 
New Testament] subject themselves not only to cross-examina- 
tion among themselves, but to be compared and tried by con- 
temporary historians, geographers, politicians, statesmen and 
orators; in fact, they bring themselves in contact with all public 
documents of the age in which they lived and wrote. * * * 
We claim no favors. We ask for no peculiar process, no new or 
untried form of examination. We will constitute no new court 

1 Evi., p. 190. 

—191— 



" Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of inquiry. We will submit the question of authorship to be tried 
by all the canons, or regulations, or rules, which the literary 
world, which the most rigid critics have instituted or appealed to, 
in settling any literary question of this sort."^ 

"That the words of the sacred writings are taken both literally 
and figuratively, as the words of all other books, is now almost 
universally conceded; and that the true sense of the words is the 
true doctrine of the Bible, is daily gaining ground among the 
most learned and skillful interpreters; in one word, that the 
Bible is not to be interpreted arbitrarily, is the most valuable 
discovery or concession of this generation. This, indeed, was 
confessed by our most distinguished reformers. Melancthon 
said: 'The Scripture cannot be understood theologically until it 
is understood grammatically,' and Luther affirmed that a certain 
knowledge of Scripture depends upon a knowledge of its words."* 

The popular method, aside from no method at all, of 
interpreting the Bible in Mr. Campbell's day, was the 
scrap, or text, method. "More and more, as the first 
generation of Protestant leaders recedes into the past, 
the theology of those who come after passes into the 
scholastic stage. . . . The Bible was looked upon as 
an authoritative text-book, from which doctrines and 
proofs of doctrines were to be drawn with little or no 
discrimination as to the use to be made of the different 
books. Such were the ramifications of the system that 
little if any space was left for varieties of opinion, and 
dissent upon any point was treated as heresy."'^ Mr. Camp- 
bell had no sympathy whatever with such a scrappy way 
of gathering divine knowledge. This is one of the anti- 

1 Kvi., p. 263f. (Italics Author's.) 2 Bapt., p. 59. 
3 History of Christian Doctrine (Fisher), p. 347. 

— :192— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

quated customs which he found conserved in the Roman 
CathoHc Church. He affirms that in this way she had 
taken away the key of knowledge and lost to the people 
the key of interpretation, thus rendering the oracles of 
God of none effect. He would choose the up-to-date, 
scientific method and come to the oracle intelligently 
furnished with the best outfit that Biblical criticism af- 
forded. His greatest objection urged against using the 
Bible as an arsenal of texts is that it harks against a 
correct interpretation. Speaking at some length of the 
evils arising from this mincing of the scriptures into 
texts in preaching, he says : 

"But this is not the worst evil resulting from this art. It 
gives birth to arbitrary and unreasonable rules of interpreta- 
tion which, so far as they obtain, perfectly disqualify the 
auditors from understanding anything they read in the sacred 
volume."^ 

He assures us that he selects only such rules of interpre- 
tation as are in use among the most eminent critics.^ He 
is not blind to the difficulties which beset the historian 
who would give us the true interpretation of the New 
Testament. A clear idea of the magnitude of such a task 
is given by Prof. James Vernon Bartlet :" "The historian 
has to mediate between the mind of his own age and 
the facts of past ages. This task is the harder, yet the 
more needful, in proportion as the facts are themselves 
of the mental order. For such must be seen first and 
foremost through the souls of men and women in whom 

1 C. B., p. 443. 2 ch. Sys., p. 16. 3 The Apostolic Age, p. 8. 
(13) —193— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

they once lived, if they are to be other than the mirage of 
our own latter-day consciousness. The historian of the 
Apostolic Age, then, has to make live again to the read- 
er's imagination the complex world of thought and action 
to which primitive Christian experience — even where 
most under the renovating sway of the New Message — 
was largely relative. As surely as the men of that age 
looked on the universe in the light of Ptolemaic 
or geocentric system, so surely did they view life all 
around by the aid of intellectual forms, often correspond- 
ingly diverse from ours. Here lies the main difficulty 
for the reader of the New Testament. He is ever com- 
ing upon phrases that do not really appeal to him, ideas 
that he cannot personally assimilate, however deeply 
in sympathy he may be with the general spirit of the 
whole or even of the special passage in question. His 
embarrassment is just the same as an early Christian 
would experience if confronted with a mediaeval or mod- 
ern book on religion. The background taken for granted, 
because part of the culture of the age, is in each case 
unrealized; the larger context is lacking. It is this 
which the historian has to supply. He had, in a word, 
to make himself and fellows the intellectual contem- 
poraries of the men of the story. In the end, nothing 
shall seem strange or pointless." 

Mr. Campbell had in mind the importance of this task 
when he said : 

"The first and all-important inquiry with me, in reading the 
oracles of God, has long been, is now, and, I presume, while I 

—194— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian L,iherty, 

live will be, what were the exact ideas that the writers of the 
New Testament associated with the terms which they used."^ 

Some of the most important of the critical rules which 

would guide him in this quest are, he tells us : 

"A regard to the grand design of the whole, and to the par- 
ticular design of each item in the narrative ;" attendance upon 
"the circumstances;" "character of the writer;" "circumstances 
of the people addressed;" "their peculiar prejudices, views and 
feelings;" the writer's "motives and intentions" in writing, etc. 
Moreover, the interpreter must "apply the same rules of in- 
terpretation to these compositions which he would apply to any 
other writings of the same antiquity." * * * Furthermore, 
he says : "These writers do not always aim at giving the pre- 
cise words of those they quote, not even of the Savior himself, 
but only the full and precise sense of what was uttered or writ- 
ten. * * * And, the order of narration in these histories is 
similar to the Jewish and other ancient histories, and is not con- 
ducted according to the modern plan of historic writings; con- 
sequently not so lucid to us, who are accustomed to a greater 
degree of precision in affixing dates to events and transactions, 
as also in describing the theaters on which they happen, as his- 
tories conducted on our plan. We are liable to err in supposing 
that events following each other in close succession in the thread 
of narration, as immediately following each other in time and 
place, in actual occurrence." He then finds that "the golden key 
of interpretation is that we must place ourselves in their circum- 
stances."^ 

In harmony with Prof. Bartlet's idea of the historian's 
task, he finds this no small undertaking, for, says Mr. 
Campbell : 

"We must place ourselves in Judea, in Rome, or in Corinth. 

1 Karly Relation and Separation of the Baptists and Disciples (Gates) 
p. 115. 2 i^iv. Dr., p. 221. 

—195— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

* * * "VVe must mingle with the Jews in their temple and 
synagogues. We must visit the temples and altars of the Pagan 
Gentiles. We must converse with Epicurean and Stoic phi- 
losophers ; with Pharisees and Sadducees, with priests and people 
who died centuries before we were born. We must place before 
us manuscript copies, written without a break, a chapter or a 
verse. We must remember what the writers spoke to the people 
before they wrote to them. We must not only attend to what 
they said and wrote, but to what they did."^ 

It is like reading a letter from a friend, he goes on to 
point out. We regard the date, place, occasion, and de- 
sign of the writer. And then, instead of coming to the 
writer's meaning from the detached sentence, we try to 
feel the atmosphere of the whole. We view all with 
reference to the main design. So he concludes that the 
same common sense is required to understand scripture 
as we use in understanding all our epistolary communi- 
cations. 

Herein is the immense value of Biblical criticism. It 
is the handmaid that enters into all departments of knowl- 
edge and comes back to scripture ladened with every pos- 
sible fact that will make the writer's true meaning stand 
out. 

Nor was Mr. Campbell unaware of the spurious read- 
ings and interpolations which have crept into the text of 
Scripture. Following the critic Michaelis, he points 
out the causes of these errors to be from (IJ 
''Carelessness of the transcribers;" (2) "mistakes of 
transcribers;" (3) "errors or imperfections in the ancient 

1 Uv, Or., p. 42, 

—196— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

manuscript from which the transcriber copied;"* (4) 
"critical conjectures, or intended improvements of the 
original text;" (5) "willful corruptions to serve the pur- 
poses of a party, whether orthodox or heterodox^" 

Yet, after considering all these errors, he is amazed 
that they are so few, in view of the long time and the 
many hands being engaged in their transmission. He is 
further able to make this candid estimate: 

"No fact, no cardinal truth of Christianity, is in the least af- 
fected, admitting every word found in the following table to be 
rejected with the unanimous concurrence of Christendom."^ 

This is in substantial agreement with the distinguished 
critic. Prof. Charles A. Briggs, who, like Mr. Campbell, 
having sifted the whole matter, can say :^ "The Bible has 
maintained its authority with the best scholars of our 
time, who, with open minds, have been willing to recog- 
nize any error that might be pointed out by historical 
criticism; for these errors are all in circumstantials and 
not in essentials; they are in the human setting and not 
in the precious jewel itself; they are found in that sec- 
tion of the Bible that theologians commonly account for 
from the providential superintendence of the mind of the 
author as distinguished from divine revelation."^ 

Why should we allow the human imperfections of the 
Bible to alarm usf Do we not expect to find always our 
diamonds in the rough? And is not a jewel found in the 
mud a jewel still? All perfection comes from imperfec- 

1 Liv. Or., p. 326. 2 History of Christian Doctrine (Fisher), p. 549. 
3 c, f. Also Reconstruction in Theol. (King), p. 128. 

—197— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tions. The sculptor catches mistakes, striking out here 
and rounding out there, until the perfect statue stands 
before him. This, too, is God's method. All creation 
witnesses to the fact. Not in a minute did he create the 
world, or make man. They are still in the making. Man 
is becoming, and not perfect yet! Look at that rose 
hanging there so red and fragrant! For ages God has 
been bringing it to its present perfection. And it still 
has much more of loveliness to disclose which as yet we 
know not of. Some far-off future generations shall see 
it richer still. Man, too, is still in the making. We know 
what he was and what he is, but it does not yet appear 
what he shall be. Do we forget that God's revelation 
is progressive? From stage to stage does he become 
known, and always through things humble and crude 
in men's eyes. What, shall we let the formal errors in 
the Bible awe us ? What good is there that comes not so 
to man? The food we thrive on comes packed in husks. 
The pure air we breathe, the glorious sunshine we ab- 
sorb, the reviving water we drink, and what not — all 
come enveloped in imperfection. And love and truth and 
beauty, the abiding realities of life, have their human set- 
ting. Are they any less true? Should they seem less 
real? Because the voice of God speaks to us in human 
events and human lives, shall we turn from the record? 
Because the gem comes to us in its natural imperfect 
human setting, shall we close our eyes to its luster ? The 
Bible's human imperfection in reality bespeaks its divin- 
ity. God is always revealing himself through imperfect 

—198— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

things. The richest disclosure of His character which 
reveals his justice, mercy, love, and righteousness comes 
through the human. It is His method. Earthen vessels 
become His chosen instruments of self-revelation. Ever 
was He speaking in the imperfect prophets. Yet His voice 
was heard. And there was no alloy in the divine mes- 
sage. When he would make the fullest and highest reve- 
lation of himself to man he does not disassociate it from 
the human. On the contrary, he chooses, for his Son, 
a human embodiment. Born of a human mother, he took 
the "form of a servant, being made in the likeness of 
men." And when his Son would hand on to the world 
the wonderful story of divine love, he writes no word, 
but commits the sacred deposit to earthen vessels. How 
should we expect to find the revealed God unlikened to 
anything of the earth? Such a scheme would be unnat- 
ural, unreal, impossible of understanding, unlike divine 
procedure. There is no divine way, or, more properly, 
the divine way is the human way. There is no divine 
language. The human language is the divine language. 
And with equal truth and propriety we may say, there is 
no divine man. The divine men are the human men. 
Even when God would show the world the perfection 
of his character and set in the midst a model for all 
time, he sent not to earth a purely divine angel, but chose 
his own Son, who became flesh in the likeness of men. 
Born of a human mother, he linked himself to earth. And 
here among men, in fashion as a man, he came into life, 
grew up, lived, and completed his task under the category 

—199— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of a human. Jesus was not exclusively divine. He was 
not only Son of God, but son of man. 

We have queer ideas of what is divine and what is 
human, of what is sacred and what is secular, and of 
what is perfect and what is imperfect. The old meta- 
physical distinctions still rule our brains. But the atmos- 
phere is clearing and the day of more wholesome concep- 
tions is gradually dawning. The reformation is in splendid 
progress. When it shall have fully come all shall 
see God everywhere, from the least to the greatest, 
from the most materialistic to the most idealistic. Then 
God and the Bible will not seem so unreal. The complete- 
ly personal God and the partially personal man will meet 
together and commune at the human shrine in the Bible. 

Dr. King gives utterance to this much overlooked fact :* 
"The Bible itself warrants no view which ignores the 
human and progressive element in the Bible, or looks on 
all its parts as of equal divinity and value. Dr. George 
Adam Smith probably does not overstate the truth when 
he says that if one person is likely to suffer shipwreck 
through the employment of the higher criticism, the faith 
of ten will break down — is breaking down — for lack of 
the very help it would bring." 

Dr. Marcus Dods quotes Dr. Small as saying:* 

"The man who binds up the cause of Christianity with 
the literal accuracy of the Bible is no friend of Christian- 
ity, for with the rejection of that theory too often comes 

1 Reconstruction in Theology., p. 116. 

2 The Bible: Its Origin and Nature, p. 141, 

—200— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the rejection of the Bible itself, and faith is shattered." 
Dr. Dods then says :^ "In Renan's case this was the 
result. He tells us in his 'Recollections' that he had been 
brought up in the belief that it was essential to the ortho- 
dox doctrine of scripture to accept it as inerrant in every 
line. When he entered upon the study of the history of 
Israel, he soon discovered that such a claim was unten- 
able, and, accordingly, parted company with the Chuich. 
So, too, Charles Bradlaugh, from an ingenious and in- 
quiring youth was turned into a bitter opponent of the 
faith because a kind of faith in Scripture was demanded 
of him which he could not honestly give. The whole 
force of Ingersoll's arguments, by means of which he 
turned hundreds from Christianity, depends on the ac- 
ceptance of the literal and total infallibility of scripture. 
Given a true view of scripture, his whole contention falls 
to the ground." 

This is just what gave Mr* Campbell such power and 
victory in debate with infidels. They met him with the 
impression that he would be loaded from the old orthodox 
standpoint, while he came into the arena with the Bible 
understood and interpreted by the best methods afforded 
by the world of critical scholarship. He tells us that at 
the age of twenty-one, as he became identified with the 
ministry, he 

"discovered that the religion of the New Testament was one 
thing, and that of any sect which I knev/ was another." 

"But I go upon this principle, that the heart is not cured by a 
charm, nor to be purified by false notions."- 

1 The Bible: Its Origin and Nature, p. 141. 3 c. B., p. 660f. 

—201— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"I am under no necessity to pilot through the storm, the opin- 
ions, fancies, or by-laws of any sect. It is the religion of the 
Bible, and that alone, I am concerned to prove to be divine."^ 

"If our most pure, holy and heavenly religion can be defended, 
supported, inculcated and diffused by no other weapons than in 
locks, swords and faggots, I wish not to be in the rear or van of 
its advocates. No, on our banners is inscribed, reason, argument, 
persuasion."^ 

In declining the challenge to debate J. S. Sweeny, Rob- 
ert Ingersoll said: "I will not take Mr. Sweeny as a 
representative of the clergy, because he does not repre- 
sent them. He is a 'Campbellite,' and these people propa- 
gate nothing but Jesus Christ as their guide. I have no 
particular objection to Jesus Christ. If you want me to 
debate with a representative of the clergy, procure a man 
that has a creed, and I will answer him."* 

In coming to the Bible as Mr. Campbell did, critically, 
i. e., intelligently, purposing to take it for what it is and 
what it purports to be, and not what reverent ignorance 
and unlearned mysticism imagine it to be, he had no fear 
that anything of truth would be lost or anything of the 
divine would fail of being disclosed. On the contrary, 
this acceptance of the Bible as literature, with its hu- 
man elements laid bare, was seen to be God's objective 
method of meeting man subjectively. The Bible was but 
a means to an end — through the medium of language God 
and man coming together. And this language is human 
language, even as he says : 

"The inspired men deHvered supernatural communications in 
1 C. B., p. 552. 2 Ibid., p. 344. 3 The Centennial Camp. Fire, p. 57. 

—202— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

their own peculiar modes of expressing themselves. * * * jjj 
other words, their own judgment or taste in the selection of 
terms was not suspended by the new language. * * * (They) 
chose such as, in their judgment, would most clearly and forcibly 
reveal the mind of the spirit to their hearers. * * * From 
what they have spoken and written we are authorized to think 
that they were as free in the selection of words and phrases as I 
am in endeavoring to communicate my views of their inspira- 
tion."^ 

Instead of disparaging the Bible in his eyes, it rather 
enhanced it, as he suggests : 

"One of the internal evidences of the truth of the Apostolic 
writings is, that each has something peculiar to himself. So has 
every speaker and teacher that has appeared among men. 
Jesus Christ himself had his peculiar characteristics."^ 

This recognition of the personal equation in Biblical 
writers was one of the mighty triumphs of the critical 
method over the mystical. Men are active, not passive. 
Their eyes are opened, not shut. They are strong per- 
sonalities, not weak imbeciles. 

Principal Fairbairn utters a strong word on this 
point :^ 

"The new historical and literary spirit has produced a 
more detailed and skillful handling of the thought or 
intellectual content of the literature. The sacred writ- 
ers are not now dealt with as if their personalities had 
been merged into one colossal individuality, and as if 
the very composite material they had created were a 

1 Bapt., p. 52. 2 D. on R. C, p. 83 (c. f. also Alexander Campbell and 
Christian I^iberty) , p. 106. 3 The place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 292f. 

— 203-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

single work, which could be interpreted and quoted as 
a homogeneous whole. The new insight into the char- 
acters, histories, circumstances, succession of the writers, 
has necessitated a distinct and special treatment of their 
minds and words, which has, as notably in the case of 
Paul, enabled us to measure and register the change and 
expansion of their thought. 'Biblical Theology' means 
now the theology of the Bible, not of the creeds and 
schools. .... Hebrews and John, Peter and James, 
have been similarly treated and explained, and we can 
now look at the thought of the New Testam'ent in its 
constituent parts, in its historical succession, and as a 
complete, if not organic, whole." 

There has been much progress in Biblical investiga- 
tion since Mr. Campbell's day. This is just what he fore- 
saw, expected, and desired. When speaking about get- 
ting away from his past moorings to scholastic and Cal- 
vinistic influences, and he felt that the passing of the old 
and the incoming of the new "was as gradual as the ap- 
proaches of spring," he said : 

"Little is done, it is true, compared with what is yet to be done ; 
but that little is a great deal compared with the opposition made, 
and the shortness of the time in which it has been done. He 
that sails against both wind and tide sails slowly, and if he ad- 
vances at all it must be by great exertion of the mariners. The 
storm now rages more than at any former period; but the cur- 
rent is more favorable. The winds of doctrine are raging upon 
the great sea; but they are continually shifting, and, though we 
may be tossed and driven sometimes out of our course, the vessel 

—204— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

is good, the Pilot the most skillful, so we cannot fear to reach 
the desired haven."^ 

Mr. Campbell's optimism was sublime. He never 
feared the candid examination of truth. In such a task 
he finds noble companionship. He says: 

"This fearlessness of consequences, this eager desire of ex- 
amination, this courting of contradiction, is the most prominent 
feature in the character of all the original witnesses who attest 
the evangelical story."^ 

"The truth of God and the religion of the Bible never yet 
gained advantage, but on all occasions, sustained injury, from 
falsehood and lies employed in its defense."* 

The sectarians to him were those who turned from the 
truth of things and shut themselves up in the darkness 
of their own narrow minds. He says : 

"The world — I mean the Christian communities — are tired of 
sectarianism; light is rapidly progressing; the true nature of the 
Christian institution is beginning to be understood, and all the 
signs of the times indicate the approach, the near approach, of 
this happy era."* 

The critical problems gave him no undue alarm. About 
certain problems in which no satisfactory conclusions had 
been reached, he says: 

"It is not necessary that we should be able to prove the author- 
ship of every particular piece composing the Old and New Testa- 
ments to prove their authenticity."^ 

He then quotes Bishop Watson, who shows the idea "anony- 
mous, and therefore without authority," to be unreasonable and 
untrue. Mr. Campbell, then, for an example, cites the Book of 

1 C. B., p. 661. 2 ^vi., p. 284. 3 ibid. 4 ^vi., p. 351. 6 Ibid., p. 353£. 

—205— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Job as having no author's name attached, yet this does invalidate 
its contents. He also alludes to "the burial of Moses, and other 
such additions made to some books in the Old Testament." 
But, says he: 

"When I hear of interpolations and contradictions, I think of 
the Honorable Soame Jenyus, once a skeptic. He had concluded 
to publish a work against the Christian religion; but, thinking 
that he ought to be well acquainted with its fables and ab- 
surdities before he ventured to appear before the public, he de- 
termined to make himself well acquainted with the contents of 
the book. But he soon found good reasons to reform his plan; 
and, instead of furnishing a work against the Christian religion, 
he gave to the world a short and unanswerable treatise upon the 
truth and authenticity of it. This treatise on the ^Internal Evi- 
dence* is written in a masterly style, and with a boldness which 
nothing but the assurance of faith could inspire. He makes the 
following bold assertion, which many would think is going too 
far : 'For I will venture to affirm that if any one could prove, 
what is possible to be proved, because it is not true, that there 
are errors in geography, chronology, and philosophy, in every 
page of the Bible; that the prophesies therein delivered are all 
but fortunate guesses, or artful applications, and the miracles 
there recorded no better than legendary tales; if any one could 
show these books were never written by their pretended authors, 
but were posterior impositions on illiterate and credulous ages, 
all these wonderful discoveries would prove no more than this : 
that God, for reasons to us unknown, had thought proper to per- 
mit a revelation by him communicated to mankind, to be mixed 
with their ignorance and corrupted by their frauds from its 
earliest infancy, in the same manner in which he has visibly per- 
mitted it to be mixed and corrupted from that period to the 
present hour. If^ -in these books, a religion, superior to all 
human imagination, actually exists, it is of no consequence to 
the proof of its divine origin, by ivhat means it was there in- 

—206— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

*'*-oduced, or with what human errors and imperfections it is 
blended. A diamond, though found in a bed of mud, is still a 
diamond, nor can the dirt, which surrounds it, depreciate its 
value or destroy its lustre."^ 

In thus coming to the Bible as it really is, criticism has 
made a decided gain over the old orthodox idea. Its 
divine authority rests not upon its being a book free from 
error, but rather on its being a human composition whose 
writers were impelled by God's spirit, the very method 
God has chosen to disclose himself to men. 

In fact, the Bible was never intended by God to make 
man wise unto all wisdom, but only unto God's true na- 
ture and the salvation of man's soul. Failure to observe 
this fact has resulted most disastrously. While it has 
made, on the one hand, "men of one Book," on the other 
hand, it has made wholesale, woeful ignorance. Says Mr. 
Campbell : 

This whole book was gotten up for the express purpose of 
impressing upon man a true appreciation of his moral relation."^ 

"The great God has condescended to teach but one science, and 
that is the science of religion, or the knowledge of himself and 
of man, in all his relations, as his creature. He has taught but 
one art, and that is the art of living well in relation to all the 
high ends and destinies of man. Now the Bible contains this 
science and teaches this art in the same perfection which its 
author exhibits in all his works."^ 

The trouble with men has been that when they wanted 
to see the stars, they have looked into their Bible instead 
of in the heavens, where the stars are. For their ge- 

1 Evi., p. 355f. (Italics author's.) 2 i^ect. on Pent., p. 202. 3 c. B., p. 259. 

—207— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

ology they have gone to their Bible instead of to the rocks 
with their fossils. 

Mr. Campbell feels the force of this fact when he 
says: 

"The Bible offers no theories of astronomy, geology, chemistry 
or mental philosophy. It fears nothing, however, from the de- 
velopments of the sciences of matter or of mind. Ignorance of 
nature, of the Bible and of true science led the Pope and his 
ecclesiastics to denounce all the leading scientific innovations 
upon ancient opinions, on the ground that they were unfriendly 
to religion and would finally destroy the credibility of the Bible. 
But a better knowledge of nature and of the Bible has shown 
that there is no discord or contradiction in their testimonies."^ 

Dr. Fisher quotes this important declaration from the 
address (1891) of Lewis F. Stearns:^ "We are coming 
more clearly to understand the great purpose of the 
Bible; namely, to bring the church and the individual, 
of all ages, into vital contact with the historic facts, the 
divine truth, and the spiritual power of Christiantiy ; and 
so to discern what is essential and non-essential for the 
attainment of that purpose. We are most of us ready 
to admit that false standards have been set up, that an 
infallibility in non-essentials has been demanded, which 
the Bible never claims, and which, if it existed, would 
render it less fitted for its end. We are beginning to 
see that we may grant that the sacred writers were not 
scientific historians, not philosophers or men of science, 
not experts in the methods of scientific exegesis or of 

1 Add., p. 477. 2 History of Christian Doctrine, p. 548. 

—208— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

literary criticism, and yet rest firm in our conviction that 
they were so directed by the supernatural influence of 
God's Spirit as to give us the perfect rule of faith and 
life." 

This is the same sentiment that Air. Campbell is strug- 
gling to express in the light afiforded by the half century 
previous. He says : 

"When we take into view the object proposed, in giving to 
the world the Bible, we have got into the possession of more than 
half the secret. And what was this? It will be said, the il- 
lumination of the world. But in reference to some end? As- 
suredly in reference to some end; for, without this end in view, 
there could be no selection of items or topics on which to ad- 
dress men. God has not disclosed the principles of astronomy or 
navigation in any part of his revelation; yet if the object of his 
revelation had been the mere illumination of the mind on sub- 
jects hitherto unknown, the systems and laws of astronomy or 
chemistry would have been in times past a proper subject of 
revelation. But it is not the mere illumination of the mind 
which constituted a primary object in any communication from 
God to man."^ 

*'It is not, then, a treatise on man as he was, nor on man as he 

will be; but on man as he is and as he ought to be; not as he 

is physically, astronomically, geologically, politically or meta- 

.physically ; but as he is and ought to be, morally and religiously."^ 

"It instructs us in all our natural, moral, political and re- 
ligious relations. Though it teaches us not astronomy, medi- 
cine, chemistry, mathematics, architecture, it gives us all the 
knowledge which adorns and dignifies our moral nature and fits 
us for happiness."* 

The shipwrecks of faith that occur do not happen any 

1 C. B., p. 246. 2 Ch Sys., p. 15. 3 ibid., p. 303. 
(14) —209— 



'Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

more from the fact that criticism has turned the light of 
truth upon the Bible than because men's previous ideas 
about the Bible were false. The real blame falls not 
upon the truth-bringers, the candles of the Lord, but 
rather upon those who put the false ideas into the minds 
of men; ideas which they come to see as false and 
which must of necessity be unlearned. Mr. Campbell 
tests the rationality of this system of giving up the Bible 
because of former errors. He answers the "Inquirer," 
saying : 

"The sum of his first number is, that he was once a true be- 
liever in revelation, and that he is now a true unbeliever; and 
the reason he gives for being an unbeliever is that he 'could not 
help finding traces of ignorance in the Scriptures.' * * * ^^ 
this discovery his faith exploded. But what was the ignorance 
he could not help finding? This is the question. Would you 
laugh if I told you it was this? He discovered that Moses was 
ignorant of the art of steamboat building!! * * * His start- 
ing point is this : 'The ancients had no correct knowledge either 
of astronomy or natural history, and the writers of the Scrip- 
tures, if they he not inspired, may be expected to exhibit such 
misconceptions on those subjects as we know to have char- 
acterized the age in which they lived.' * * * j^g^ ^g now state 
the counterpart of his position in his own style : The ancients 
had no correct knowledge either of astronomy or of natural his- 
tory; and the writers of the Bible, if they be inspired, must be 
expected to exhibit such conceptions on these subjects as we 
know not to have characterized the age in which they lived — 
and thus have rendered themselves incredible, I say. For, should 
a man pretend to wrfte the history of the first settlement of 
Virginia, and tell us about their navigating the James River in 
steamboats, two centuries ago, and pretend that he lived at that 

—210— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

time, he would destroy the credibility of his own work. And so 
'Mr. Inquirer' would have had Moses to have exhibited, 'if in- 
spired,' conceptions of astronomy and natural history as we 
know did not characterize the age in which he lived. This is 
the honest frontispiece of 'all that ignorance he could not help 
finding in the Bible.' 

"In the first step the 'Inquirer' made the following errors are 
adopted as axioms of undoubted truth : 

1. That men inspired to teach religion should be inspired 
with the knowledge of all natural science. 

2. That to render a witness credible on one subject, it is 
necessary that he should speak our views on every conceivable 
topic. 

3. That a writer who wrote three thousand years ago should 
adopt a style of writing and exhibit views of things not known 
or entertained by any people on earth for a thousand years 
after he died, in order to make his narrative credible. * * * 
No wonder this gentleman ceased to be a true believer in the 
Bible. * * * I would not give a pin for an arithmetical de- 
fense of the size or of the contents of Noah's ark, nor for an 
astronomical explanation of the Mosaic account of the creation, 
to confute or refute the puerile cavils of any conceited skeptic; 
while I can, by a single impulse of my great toe, kick from 
under him the stool on which he sits, astride the mighty gulf, 
the fathomless abyss, whence he cannot rise by all the imple- 
ments and tacklings in the great magazine of skeptical re- 
sources."^ 

In taking such a position, that the divinity of the Bible 
is not vested in its human structure, and that its authority 
and appeal are not incident upon its being a text-book on 
science, Mr. Campbell was not only able triumph- 
antly to meet all the skeptics of his day, but he found 

1 C. Bm p. 357f. 

—211— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

himself in the right attitude for God's self-disclosure 
through the medium of the Bible. 

That he was far beyond his times is evident. An idea 
of the background of his labors may be gained when one 
takes into consideration that during his agitation for bet- 
ter things, such men as Prof. Leonard Woods of the The- 
ological Seminary at Andover were teaching an "Inspira- 
tion so operated as to make the Bible a book free from 
all error." Thus his doctrine of inspiration is plenary. 
The argument is wholly from the claims of the Bible 
itself, and this never seems to Woods to be, what it is, 
a begging of the whole question."^ 

Or, let Dr. Tholuck, of the German Lutheran Church, 
state the popular esteem in which the Bible is held : "In 
this manner arose, amongst both Lutheran and Reformed 
divines, not earlier, strictly speaking, than the seventeenth 
century, those sentiments concerning Holy Scripture 
which regarded it as the infallible production of the Di- 
vine Spirit, not merely in its religious, but in its entire 
contents; and not merely in its contents, but also in its 
very form .... it was taught that the writers of 
the Bible were to be regarded as writing-pens wielded 
by the hand of God, and amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, 
who dictated, whom God used as the flute-player does 
his instrument; not only the sense, but also the words, 
and not these merely, but even the letters, and vowel- 
points, which in Hebrew are written under the conso- 
nants — according to some, the very punctuation — pro- 

1 A History of New England Theology (Frank Hugh Foster), p. 358. 

—212— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

ceeded from God."^ Clovius taught: "It is impious and 
profane to change a single point in the word of God, and 
to substitute a smooth breathing for a rough one, or a 
rough for a smooth."^ Mr. Campbell, in speaking of 
the original non-division of the Bible into chapters, verses, 
etc., says : 

"There is no more divinity in the chapters, verses, commas, 
semicolons and periods of the inspired writings than there is 
in the paper on which they are inscribed, or in the ink by which 
they are depicted to our view."^ 

"As the human body to the soul, so is the word of God to his 
volition. His word is but the vehicle through which his creative 
power manifests itself. It is the mere form or embodiment of 
his volition — the annunciation of his purpose. God always works 
by means, never without them. The means, indeed, are but the 
envelope of his will."* 

This human envelope is a necessary means for com- 
munication between souls. In fact, one has not really 
expressed himself until he avails himself of this means. 
"As a work of art cannot be a full, harmonious truth 
until it has been completed in marble or bronze, and as a 
conception in the artist's imagination is but a disjointed 
and fragmentary beauty, so for mankind language is the 
universal plastic material in which alone they elaborate 
their surging ideas into thought."^ 

But we must not lose sight of the soul behind the ex- 
pression. The Divine Being must not be confounded 
with the language that seeks to express him. May we 

1 The New Appreciation of the Bible (Selleck), p. 160. 2 ibid., p. S5. 
3 Bapt., p. 60. 4 Ibid., p. 90. 5 Lotze, Microscomus, Vol. I, p. 638. 

—213— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

not forget that he is much more than all terms used in 
revealing him. God and Christ are more than the Bible, 
in so far as the content is greater than the term; the 
personal greater than the impersonal. 

What is the term? And what is the content of a 
term? Take the term 'law." What is law? Did you 
ever see a law? What are its features? How does it 
look? What is it essentially? You mention that law 
which the city council made last week. 'Tis posted 
everywhere about the city that the citizens may read and 
obey. But where is that law? Where does it exist? 
Not on the posters reading, 'Thou shalt not.' Not in the 
word spelt L-A-W. This term is only the thought con- 
veyance. The law itself, its essential reality, is, no more 
nor less, than the will of the community. They take hold 
of a common term., mutually understood, in order to com- 
municate the feeling of their wills to every other person 
in the community. It is soul communicating with soul 
by the use of a word between them. We may learn the 
law and even obey it to the very letter, yet be ignorant 
of the soul that willed it. 

So it is when we come to the Bible. It is not altogether 
a matter of words and terms and phrases, this Kingdom 
of God. These are there, it is true, not to be worshipped, 
but to be understood. That law of God exists not in the 
paper and ink, nor in the word. It is but the sign. The 
sign of an idea? Yes, but more. That law is the per- 
sonal will of God. So of love, and holiness, and mercy, 
and righteousness, and all the rest. The reality exists 

—214— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

in personal souls. These words, all of them, are mere in- 
struments ; call them carts if you like, to convey the feel- 
ing of the great soul of God to the souls of his children. 
Do not, then, try to find the spirit in the impersonal let- 
ters. These, understand, have such a firm grasp of their 
conceptions that they may lead you into the great, loving 
Father-Heart, that you may find communion with him 
and share with him his thoughts, his love, and his pur- 
poses. We need not, then, reverence as sacred the let- 
ters, be they perfect or imperfect, in such a way as to 
allow them to hide from us the loving Father. But, rather, 
use them, study them, know them, till we hear his voice, 
feel his personality, and till our own souls answer back. 
Then we shall become- aware that God and Christ are 
greater than any word of them. 

This is why Amory H. Bradford can say:^ "Our com- 
mon words tell no more of what is behind them than ocean 
waves tell of the deeps of the sea. Beneath the word 
'power' throb the ceaseless forces that palpitate through 
the universe. Beneath the word 'love' thrill the hallowed 
anticipations of youth, the deep devotion of mothers' 
hearts, and the fathomless affection of the Father Al- 
mighty. Our words, like our music, our architecture, 
and our paintings, are symbols of thoughts, visions and 
harmonies which flow out into our souls from unseen 
spheres." 

The recognition of this fact enable Lotze to posit the 
essential reality, the thing-in-itself in the personal:* 

1 Messages of the Masters, p. 122. 2 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 721. 

—215— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

''Good and good things do not exist as such independent 
of the feehng, wilHng, and knowing mind ; they have real- 
ity only as living movements of such a mind. What is 
good in itself is some felt bliss ; what we call good things 
are means to this good, but are not themselves this good 
until they have been transformed into enjoyment; the 
only thing that is really good is that living love that wills 
the blessedness of others." 

Mr. Campbell again seeks to elucidate this relation 
between the word and its content, between literature and 
its essential reality. He says : 

"Language is, therefore, the spiritual or intellectual and moral 
currency between man and man, between nation and nation, be- 
tween ancestors and their descendants; by which, though dead, 
they commune with us and we with them. This is the whole 
circuit of language that decorates, enriches and beautifies the 
halls of literature, science and religion." * * * 

"Religion and morals come to us objectively, through litera- 
ture. , Yet literature is no more religion or morals than lead is 
water because the water passes through it. Still it happens, if 
you have not the leaden pipe you can have no water in the cup. 
Now, as religion comes to us through the Bible, or through 
literature, if you have not some Divine literature in your heads 
or ears, you will never have Divine love in your hearts. Litera- 
ture is not paper or parchment. It is that which is inscribed 
upon it. The envelope of a letter, anymore than the paper on 
which it is written, is not the letter. The letter is the written 
word. And yet the written word is itself but an envelope. The 
power that smites the conscience, that melts the heart, that 
cheers the broken spirit, is not the paper, the ink, the written 
symbol, but something that underlies the whole. It is the mind, 
the idea, the spirit, the conception, clothed, embodied, uttered, 

—216— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

perceived, received, accredited, that agonizes or consoles, that 
softens and subdues, that purifies and ennobles the heart, that 
transforms the man and adorns him with the beauty of purity, 
the true graces of religion and morality."^ 

What then is this true reality, this Good-in-itself, that 
the words, symbols, and, indeed, all things, envelope? 
This is what we are all seeking, by the use of these 
means. What is "that something that underlies the 
whole," that "something God put there ?"^ Lotze an- 
swers :^ "The true reality that is and ought to be, is not 
matter, and is still less Idea, but is the living personal 
Spirit of God and the world of personal spirits which He 
has created. They only are the place in which Good and 
good things exist." 

So we may come to the Bible as to an earthen vessel 
not to be hindered by its human workmanship but to be 
partakers of its rich contents. Ever remembering that 
God is greater than any term used to express him, or 
even any thought of him. For life is more than things, 
and the soul is more than thinking. The soul's life is 
thinking, feeling, willing. 

Mr. Campbell's coming to the Bible as a book of liter- 
ature is not unlike both in spirit and utterance, the Ger- 
man, Herder, poet and theologian. Herder died when 
Mr. Campbell was a boy of fifteen years. But Coleridge 
over in England was thinking Herder's thoughts after 
him when Mr. Camobell came to America. And Camp- 

1 Add., p. 182f. (Italics author's.) 2 The Collected Poems of Wilfred 
Campbell, p. 204. 3 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 728. 

—217— 



Alexander CampheU and Christian Liberty. 

bell was a reader and admirer of Coleridge. Indeed in 
many features Mr. Campbell's labors both in the nature 
of his task and in the way he met it, run parallel to Cole- 
ridge's. Coleridge was working out in England what 
Herder, and others, were working out in Germany, and 
what Campbell was emphasizing in America. 

Let us for a moment consider Coleridge^ s efforts as 
noted by Dr. John Tulloch. ^ Hiere is his background. 
On the one side was Evangelicalism, the only aggressive 
religion at the time of 1800, but intellectually impotent 
and indifferent to the rising waves of religious thought. 
They felt "secure within their well worn armor of tra- 
ditionary prejudgment." A subjective standard of judg- 
ment was ignored. Authorized dogmas, creeds, and the 
Bible being settled long ago and fixed for all time were 
the center of appeal to settle everything. The individual 
judgment was ignored. Reason was set aside. The ap- 
peal was to tradition, what is written. On the other side 
were those who were pillowed upon the new thought 
waves, being "carried away altogether, and loosing their 
old moorings." This was the opposite extreme, an over- 
intellectualism. Reason was everything. It was sub- 
jectivism gone wild. 

Coleridge faced the problem in England as Campbell 
faced it in America. He renovated current Christian 
ideas and urged a true study and investigation of the 
Bible. Both Coleridge and Campbell were mediators^ 

1 Movements of Religious Thought in Britian During the 19th Century 
(1901),Scribner. 

—218— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

and restorationists. While Coleridge was pleading for 
the restoration of the broken harmony between reason 
and religion by enlarging the conceptions of both, Camp- 
bell was pleading this same lost unity by the restoration 
of the original conceptions of the mind of Christ. But 
both were emphasizing the inner light, the right and 
duty of the individual judgment to act. Both were con- 
tending for the freedom of the subject to pass judgment 
upon all the objective data. Both were calling men from 
the passive submission to tradition, to think, to reason, to 
investigate, to decide, and to act for themselves. Both 
were crying for rational men and a rational Bible. 

And there was Herder over in Germany during the later 
half of the 18th century, like Mr. Campbell in the 19th 
century in America, humanizing the Bible and Chris- 
tianity. But not in a manner which characterized many 
of their contemporaries who lost sight of the Divinity. 
Hagenbach, speaking of Herder, says : "The very Bible 
that so many had striven to set aside as an antiquated and 
obscure book, and as a museum of old prejudices, he 
would hold aloft as the light in the candlestick of the 
sanctuary, just as Luther had done in the days of the 
Reformation."^ 

He took the Bible from the hands of those who were 
giving it an artificial and strained interpretation, those 
who were so zealous for the letter (both pro and con) 
to the utter neglect of the spirit, and sought to place its 

1 Hagenbach's History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Vol. 
II, p. 39. 

—219— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian L^iberty. 

divinity where it is to be found, in the spirit and not in 
the letter. He held that the individual himself must come 
to the Bible, and instead of understanding from the tra- 
ditional notions and conceptions, penetrate it with his. 
own vision. It was thus brought to the touchstone of 
the personal soul with whatever capacity it might possess, 
having the aid of that same Spirit of the living God who 
had spoken in these writers. Herder says: "My dear 
friend, the best study of divinity is the study of the Bible, 
and the best reading of the divine book is human. The 
Bible must be read in a human way, for it was written 
by men for men. The more humanly we read God's 
Word, the nearer do we approach to the purpose of its 
author, who created man in his own image, and deals 
toward us humanly in all these works and blessings 

where he manifests himself to us as God As 

a child listens to its father's voice, and as a man to that 
of his betrothed, so do we hear God's voice in the Scrip- 
tures, and thereby learn the music of eternity which 
sounds through them If God's Word is pre- 
sented to me in the hand of criticism as a squeezed lemon, 
God be praised that it becomes once more a fruit to me, 
growing as it does upon the tree of life."^ 

Moreover in his subjective enthusiasm Herder does not 
lose sight of the great subjective fact. And in this, too, 
Mr. Campbell is at one with him. In coming to this rev- 
elation of God with the personal soul, this touchstone 

1 Hagenbach's History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Vol. 
II, p. 40. 

—220—^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

must be brought into conjunction with its true center — 
Jesus Christ. Says Herder : "But in order to be assisted 
the revelation of God as found in the Bible, and even in 
the entire history of the human race, must be believed, 
and thus ever return to the great center about which 
everything revolves and clusters, Jesus Christ, the corner 
stone and inheritance, the greatest messenger, teacher 
and person of the Archetype. From his very nature he 
is the corner-stone of salvation, in whom we would in- 
clude everything that can save the world."^ 

In coming to the Bible as literature of both human and 
divine elements, and whose true meaning disclosed itself 
only to those who penetrated it with their own under- 
standing, Mr. Campbell was saved not only from a forced 
mystical interpretation but a cheap and easy literalism. 
He was no mystic. Neither was he a literalist. This dis- 
tinction of the figurative and literal meaning of words was 
of fundamental importance in his view of understanding 
Scripture. He asks : 

"Now, as it frequently happens that words have different 
signification, as literal and figurative, and are consequently used 
in diverse acceptations, sometimes meaning this and sometimes 
that, the first and most necessary inquiry must always be. How 
shall we, in any particular case, ascertain whether the literal 
or the figurative use of any given term shall be regarded as its 
proper signification f To which important inquiry we give this 
answer : The particular writer or speaker, or the particular- 
subject on which he writes or speaks, or the particular context 

1 Hagenbach's History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Vol? 
II, p. 50. . 

—221— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

or the particular adjuncts or words in construction with it, will 
generally, if not universally, ascertain and limit the meaning 
beyond any reasonable doubt."^ 

In other words, all these things must be shot through 
with the interpreter's vision, then he may come to a judg- 
ment upon the matter. Mr. Campbell furnishes us with 
some excellent examples of his reasoning upon this im- 
portant consideration. He gives point to the matter when 
he says : 

"I once knew a crazy literalist who affirmed that wind and 
spirit were the same — that a man's breath was his soul, because 
both were represented by the same word. Nor did he stop at 
these absurdities, but persisted in the maintenance of a literal 
river of life, jasper walls, pearly gates and golden streets in the 
heavenly Jerusalem. 

"That a lake of fire and brimstone, the flames of Tophet, and 
the perpetual burnings of the Vale of Hinnom, should become 
emblems and representations of the fearful doom of wicked and 
ungodly men, is certainly as rational and consistent as that a 
garden of delights, a golden city, spacious and splendid man- 
sions, crowns of glory, and kingly thrones, should constitute the 
imagery of the eternal honors and blessedness of the children of 
God. No man of good sense and scriptural information under- 
stands these representations to be exact literal delineations of 
the future condition of saints and sinners. Pleasure or pain 
corresponding with these figurative representations is all that 
persons of sound sense and accurate discrimination understand 
by them."2 

Mr. Campbell arrives at these rational critical conclu- 
sions by use of the same method which Bible scholars 

1 Add., p. 405. 2 Add., p. 448. 

—222— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian L^iberty. 

are applying in the same way to certain portions of the 
Old Testament.'^ Here is a fine illustration of his rea- 
soning upon the distinction between the literal and figur- 
ative use of words. About the idea of God's repenting, 
he says: 

"It is a metonymic figure. A figurative expression is never 
to be subjected to a literal interpretation. [Now, how does Mr. 
Campbell know this to be a figure? What better right has he 
for this result than some other critic has for the conclusion 
that it is literal? Just this, he penetrates the idea with his own 
vision, reason, understanding, sense. He tells us how he deter- 
mines this judgment.] Now that God could repent at all, in 
the ordinary acceptation of the term, is out of the question alto- 
gether, if for us no other reason, because he could not do wrong. 
Hence we reject entirely the literal import of the word. The 
expression is a figurative one. This is the very language of 
poetry, occurring, too, in the best style of history. * * * 

"There is a vast deal of this kind of writing in the Bible — I 
mean figurative writing; and this expression, 'It repented, the 
Lord that he had made men on the earth?' may be called a 
figurative exaggeration. [Undoubtedly the people in Mr. Camp- 
bell's day thought him to be playing fast and loose with Moses.] 
In our daily parlance we frequently observe the literal and 
figurative use of the same word. We use words in their true im- 
port, as far as we can, and it is a law that when matters of fact 
are presented we should, as far as possible, use words in their 
common acceptation. * * * But in poetry and prophecy we 
have what we call rhetorical license. * * * 

"The idea that God could be sorry and repent, as men repent 
for having done wrong, is simply preposterous. It could not be. 

i c. f. Driver: The Ut. of the Old. Test. Kent: A Hist, of the Hebrew People. 
I^yruan Abbot : The Evolution of Christianity, In fact all modern scholars. 
c. f. Especially Clark Braden in Christian Cent., Dec. 6, '08. 

—223— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

It is therefore a figurative expression — an appearance for a 
reality."* 

He puts into the interpreter's hands the golden key of 
understanding the Scriptures rationally in these words : 

"We have in the Holy Scriptures every form of expression. 
We have not only poetry and prose, precepts, promises and 
threats; but all the various forms and usages of human speech 
seem to be employed in some part of the sacred volume."^ 

Lotze utters a significant remark here: "The sacred 
writings will always captivate men's minds by their 
majesty of content and their grand beauty of expression, 
the simplicity of which is more effective than any con- 
scious art. But that which primarily hinders us from 
taking them quite literally it not the incredibility of that 
which they -report, but the figurative form of their teach- 
ing, which must be interpreted in order to be under- 
stood." 

After such a consideration from, Mr. Campbell we feel 
the peculiar force of the words of Dr. W. T. Moore :^ 
"The religious movement of the Disciples has given a 
new mmning to the Bible through a scientific interpreta- 
tion of that book. Nothing distinguished Alexander 
Campbell's advocacy more than his earnest plea for a ra- 
tional interpretation of the Bible. No one has ever op- 
posed more vehemently than he did the dogmatic and 
mystic methods of treating the Word of God. His whole 
system of hermeneutics is based upon the dictum that 

1 I^ect. on Pent., p. 156f. 2 ibid., p. 309. 3 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 4X. 
4 The Plea of the Disciples of Christ, p. 5f . 

—224— 



^Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

the Bible is an intelligent revelation of God, and can 
therefore be understood when properly treated by a legit- 
imate method of interpretation It must be evi- 

den that the Disciple movement has done much for the 
religion of Christ by giving a rational interpretation of 
the Bible. While their contention for the Bible and the 
Bible alone as a sufficient rule of faith and practice is 
all right as far as it goes, their greater and more dis- 
tinctive contention from the beginning has been that the 
Bible can be understood only by the wise and honest use 
of the scientific method of interpretation. This I regard 
as one of the most distinguished features of their plea, 
without which everything else would have been a fail- 
ure." 



(15) —225— 



CHAPTER V. 
Hearing the Voice of God 



The object of the Bible is primarily not a revelation of law, 
either ecclesiastical, political, or moral, but a revelation of God. 
This revelation is both imperfect and progressive. It is im- 
perfect, because it is the revelation of the infinite to the finite, 
and the finite cannot perfectly comprehend the infinite; it is 
progressive because as man grows in spiritual and intellectual 
capacity, his apprehension of the infinite grows also. This prop- 
osition is as familiar to the student of theology as it is axiom- 
atic. "If." says Professor Harris. "God reveals himself, it must 
be through the medium of the Unite, and to finite beings. The 
revelation must be commensurate with the medium through 
which it is made and with the development of the minds to 
whom it is made. Hence, both the revelation itself, and man's 
apprehension of the God revealed, must be progressive, and at 
any point of time incomplete. Hence, while it is the true God 
who reveals himself, man's apprehension of God at different 
stages of his own development may be not only incomplete, but 
marred by gross misconception." * * * The Bible illustrates 
this truth. The revelation of God grows both in clearness and 
in spiritual grandeur as man grows in capacity to receive and 
to communicate it.— (layman Abott), The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity. 



—.228- 



CHAPTER V. 
HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD. 

Men were coming to the Bible theologically prepos- 
sessed. Their understanding of it was predetermined by 
their views of inspiration and revelation, which they had 
inherited from the past. Some, therefore, had no diffi- 
culty in hearing the voice of God which spoke to them 
from the sacred volume. God was in the book, just as 
the fathers had declared. While others, contrarily 
taught, failed to hear any voice of God in the Bible call- 
ing to their souls. Thereupon they turned from its 
sacred pages with distrust. The uniqueness of Mr. 
Campbell's attitude was, as we have already seen, to di- 
vest himself of both the religious awe and the incredulous 
prejudices as he stood before the Bible, allowing it to 
speak for itself. 

What were his findings as he stood before the Book? 
What did his own individual reason, understanding, com- 
mon sense, find the Bible to be? We have already con- 
sidered his estimate of its mechanical make-up — that it is, 
as regards its form and structure, language, words, etc., 
intensely human ; that it is a book of literature to be un- 
derstood according to the same critical rules applied to 
other literature. But is it no more than a human book 

—229— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of literature? Is it not unlike all other books that it 
should receive his life-long endeavor? Did he find no 
change of atmosphere when he stepped from even the 
world's noblest literature into this? Yes, he did. He 
found this Bible to be divine as well as human. He 
found Divinity breathing everywhere from its pages. 
He found himself in a new, a different, a heavenly atmos- 
phere. It was like stepping out of night into day. It was 
like stepping out of the fogs into sunshine. It was like 
getting a view of the universe from the mountain tops 
above the clouds after having been in the valley beneath 
the clouds. The change was as from the cold white 
silence of winter to the warmth, beauty and music of the 
springtime. It was a change from Alpine snows to 
Southland's sunny tropics. Not the intellect alone be- 
comes captivated and held under the spell of wonderful 
ideas. But this Book enraptures the soul. It fires the 
will. It touches the whole man. His vague longings 
and dreams, his aspirations and ideals, his present need, 
comfort and joy, are all met and satisfied in this blessed 
volume. There is a response of life to life, of soul an- 
swering to soul. Yea, this book so human is found 
throbbing with Divine Life. 

This is what Dr. William R. Harper was feeling when 
he stepped out of the Assyrian and Babylonian writings 
into the Hebrew Scriptures '^ "We * * ^ find in 
the one a something which seizes hold of us, moves us 
powerfully, elevates us, inspires us. We look for the 

1 Bible Criticism and the Average Man (Johnston) , p. 71. 

—230— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

same element in the other, but it is wholly lacking. In- 
stead, there is a dullness, a flatness, an insipidity, which 
disappoints, and at times almost disgusts. Why this dif- 
ference? There is but one possible answer. This writ- 
ing, or series of writings, is human, only human. The 
other is human, to be sure, but also divine. The evidence 
is direct; it is absolutely conclusive and must be con- 
vincing." 

So this becomes the ultimate purpose of the Bible and 
the true end of all interpretation ; to bring the person face 
to face with the Infinite Father, under the spell of his in- 
spiration, his love, and his purpose. 

Therefore to Mr. Campbell the Bible is not only "the 
book of humanity," but "the book of Divinity.' He says : 

"The divine mind, the eternal spirit, breathes through the 
signs of that book — through its words, its types, its figures, 
its principles, its precepts, its examples — upon our moral nature. 
It quickens, animates, purifies, enlarges, and dignifies it by an 
assimilation of it to an incarnation of the Divinity itself; and 
capacitates man and woman for higher joys, purer delights, 
and a more efficient agency in imparting bliss to others, than all 
the documents, volumes, facts and events in all the other rec- 
ords of man, or developments of God visible to mortal eye."^ 

To his thought the Bible contained no more a revela- 
tion of God than of man. Side by side runs the process, 
God gradually and progressively disclosing himself to 
man, and man slowly comprehending himself and his 
significance in the light of the revealed God. Such a 
progressive insight is absolutely necessary for any true 

1 Add., p. 68. 

=^231-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

life, for, as Lotze says, "any one who could see quite 
through himself would seem to us to have come to an 
end of himself; he alone who is gradually discovering 
himself is entitled to take an interest in his own exist- 
ence." This "dark core of our being" then has its real 
value, even with all its seeming unreality. We are con- 
stantly driven to God to know ourselves. If the Bible 
would meet us here we must see the revealed man, as well 
the revealed God. Says Mr. Campbell: 

"It is such a revelation of God and of man, such a record 
of the past, and such anticipation of the future, as meets all 
the intellectual wants and moral exigencies of the human race."^ 

Again, in speaking upon "the necessity of a divine revela- 
tion of the moral nature of man," he says : 

"We need as much revelation in respect to the latter as to 
the former; and we are glad to know that these views are 
not peculiar to us, but that in the march of Science, and the 
growth of human understanding, their correctness is being more 
and more realized."^ 

How these recorded experiences of men speak to us of 
man as well as of God, he shows when he says : 

"It is the book of the Divine nature; it is, indeed, the book 
of God — and the book of man. Other books have nations or 
individual men, specific sciences or arts, for their subject; this 
is the book of man. Human nature is here as fully revealed 
as the Divine. They are revealed in comparison, in contrast, 
in things similar, in things dissimilar. The fountains of the 
great deep of human thought, of human motives, of human 
action, are broken up; and man, inward and outward, is con- 

1 Bapt., p. 89. 2 i,ect. on Pent., p. 66. 

—232— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

templated not in the dim taper of time, but in the strong, 
bright light of eternity; not merely as respects his position on 
the terraqueous globe, nor in human society, but as respects all 
his positions and attributes in a whole universe, a boundless 
future, a vast eternity."-^ 

Again, 

"No man ever saw himself, ever knew himself, who has not 
stood before this mirror (Bible). It is as much a revelation 
of man to himself as of God to man."^ 

How progressive, expansive and fresh he understood 
these self-disclosures to be appears when he says : 

"The two cardinal elements of the whole Book of Books 
are Divinit}^ and humanity. * * * They are (the contents 
of the Bible) subjects that will always grow in interest and 
importance, as we grow in knowledge, and intellectual and spir- 
itual power; and, we presume to say, that their expansion will 
be eternal as mind itself. * * * Thus, as we advance in 
wisdom and happiness, in the order of the wondrous and sub- 
lime revelation of God, to the growing comprehension and 
capacity of man, our growth, after all, will only prove that the 
finite can never reach the infinite — the creature never rival the 
Creator."^ 

Or, as Dr. King puts it: ^"Moreover, when one thinks 
what a real moral and spiritual revelation to a man means, 
he must see that there can be a growing revelation only 
as the man grozvs, as he comes little by little into that ex- 
perience of life out of which he can interpret the revela- 
tion." 

Therefore, Mr. Campbell can say of the Bible that 

1 Add., p. 68. 2 Add., p. 299. 5 i^ect. on Pent., p. 362. 4 Reconstruc- 
tion in Theology, p. 159. 

— 233— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

"It is not a theodicy, a theogony, a theocracy, or a theology. 
It is an encyclopedia of Divinity and humanity. It is a reve- 
lation of God in man, and of man in God. It is a revelation 
of the mysteries of the universe so far as relates to the mys- 
tery of godliness and of the past, present and future of man. 
It is to us, the library of God, and the library of man as he 
was, as he is, and as he will hereafter be,"^ 

This is the same practical conclusion that Dr. Dods 
came to when he said : ^"In the Bible we have the writ- 
ten history of this approach of God to man, the record of 
His revelation of His gracious and saving purpose and 
work. To think of it as a convenient collection or sum- 
mary of doctrines, a text-book in theological knowledge, 
is entirely to misconceive it." Its positive side is clearly 
expressed by Dr. King when he says : ^"The Bible as- 
sumption everywhere is that the living God comes into 
touch with living men. The Bible, indeed, may perhaps 
be best conceived as the record of the pre-eminent meet- 
ings of God with men. * * * 'x^he revelation is of 
God, and inspiration is the meeting of God with men — 
the Bible of the race must be the record of the pre- 
eminent meetings of God with men." 

Whatever may have been Mr. Campbell's views of 
Revelation and Inspiration, it is certain that he trans- 
cended the popular idea that the whole Bible was a revela- 
tion of God and that the words of the Bible were in- 
spired. If he had not come into the clear light of the 
modern view, it was because of the vagueness and dark- 

1 Mil. Har. 1860, p. 249. 2 The Bible: Its Origin and Nature, p. 96. 
3 Reconstruction in Theology, p. 156f . 

—234— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

ness of his times. The modern view was not yet clear, 
either in its conception or expression, even among the 
ablest scholars, as it was almost unknown, much less 
comprehended, by the average mind. This latter fact 
seems to have considerable weight in the expression of 
Mr. Campbell upon this theme. For we find him, after 
making his statements as regards revelation, from the 
point of view of the scholar, appending a remark for the 
people that they might not think of him as one gone 
astray on the matter. This is evident when he says : 

"I do not believe, then, that the book commonly called the 
Bible is properly denominated a Divine Revelation, or a com- 
munication from the Deity to the human race. At the same 
time, I am convinced that in this volume there are revelations 
or communications from the Deity to man. * * * The his- 
tory of the bondage in Egypt, of their pilgrimage through the 
wilderness, of their possession of the land of Canaan, of their 
judges and kings, is no more than true and faithful history, 
from the perusal of which the divine character and human char- 
acter is developed to the mind of the reader. 

"This is as true of the Apostolic writings as of the ancient 
Jewish prophets. In the five historical books of the New Cov- 
enant or Testament, many thousand items are written which 
are no divine revelation; such as the reasonings, objections and 
discourses of the Jewish priests, scribes, Pharisees, and Sad- 
due ees. Many historical facts, such as the decapitation of John, 
the calling of Peter, the enrollment of Augustus Caesar, the 
death of Herod, the martyrdom and burial of Stephen, the pere- 
grinations of the Savior and the Apostles, etc., etc. These and 
a thousand other items cannot be called, in our sense of the 
terms, a divine revelation. Many things in the prophetic books 
of the Jewish Scriptures, and many things in the epistles of the 

—235— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Christian Scriptures, are of the same kind. It is not the patri- 
archal, nor the Jewish, nor the Christian Revelation in piece- 
meal, that I am about to defend against the querulous, captious 
skeptic — it is the consummation of all the ancient revelations 
in the mission of the Son of God. In reference to this I view 
the whole volume ; for this is the Alpha and the Omega of 
the whole. The Christian religion is the corn in the ear. It 
germinated in the patriarchal, it shot forth in the Jewish, and 
ripened at the Christian era. It is not the bud, nor the stalk, 
nor the leaves, nor the blossoms, but the ripe ear which we 
are to eat. And it is this about which we are concerned."^ 

But, after this evolutionary consideration, he says this, 
which plainly reveals his pedagogical method in adapt- 
ing truth to the capacity of the hearer : 

"To obviate the unfounded fears of some weak minds, aris- 
ing from my remark on Revelation, I will state distinctly, 
though it is fairly implied in my remarks, that, as historians, 
the sacred writers are infallible. * * * j^- matters not 
whether these historians wrote in part or in whole from tra- 
dition, from their own observations, or from immediate sug- 
gestions, their historical accounts are to us infallible, because 
sanctioned, approved, and quoted by those under the fullest in- 
fluence of the Holy Spirit."^ 

It seems certain that Mr. Campbell was coming into the 
full light of modern Bible knowledge as rapidly as the 
age-circumstances allowed him. 

This fact is again witnessed in his Owen debate, where 
he says : 

"For now it is usual to call the whole Bible a revelation 
from God. I must explain myself here. There are a thousand 

1 c. B., p. 344£. 2 Ibid. 

—236— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

historic facts narrated in the Bible which it would be absurd 
to regard as immediate and direct revelation from the Almighty. 
* * * Revelation, from the import of the term, must be su- 
pernatural. But the historic parts of both Testaments present 
a great variety of topographical and historic facts and inci- 
dents ; colloquies between friends and enemies, of apostle, proph- 
ets, and patriarchs, and of distinguished persons, good and evil ; 
wars, intrigues, amours, and crimes of every dye. Now it 
would be neither philosophical nor rational to dignify and des- 
ignate these colloquies, narratives, geographical and biograph- 
ical notices, etc., by the term revelation. The term revelation, 
in its strict acceptation among intelligent Christians, means 
nothing more or less than a Divine communication concerning 
spiritual and eternal things, a knowledge of which man could 
never have obtained by the exercise of his reason upon mate- 
rial and sensible objects; for, as Paul says, 'Things which the 
eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, neither has it entered into 
the heart of man to conceive, has God revealed to us apostles, 
and we declare them to you.' * * * jt (Bible) teaches us 
man, it develops human nature, it reveals to us the character 
and purpose of the Maker of the Universe. * * * f^g j-i^jj. 
cule which some ignorant skeptics have uttered against the 
contents of this book, under the general title of a revelation 
from God, as if it were all properly so called, is, if it have 
any point, only directed against their own obtusity of intellect, 
and negligence in making themselves acquainted with the most 
important of all books in the world."^ 

Progressive revelation is from the known to the un- 
known ; God meeting- man in his very crudeness and lift- 
ing him little by little to fuller knowledge. Therefore 
Mr. Campbell can say: 

"Things entirely unknown can only he communicated to the 

1 Evi., p. 146f. 

'—237-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

mind by things already known. This axiom is at the basis of 
all revelations, and explains many otherwise inexplicable inci- 
dents in the divine communications to man. The natural sym- 
bols and the artificial names of things became, from a neces- 
sity of nature, the only means through which God could make 
himself known to man. This, too, has been the invariable rule 
and measure of all the discoveries which God has made of 
himself, his purpose and will. Hence, the spangled heavens, 
all the elements of nature, the earth and the sea, with all their 
inhabitants; the relations, customs and usages existing among 
men, have all been so many types or letters in the great al- 
phabet which constitutes the vocabulary of divine revelation to 
men. He has even personated himself by his own creatures, 
and spoken to man through human institutions. Hence he has 
been called a Sun, Light, Father, Husband, Man of War, Gen- 
eral of Hosts, a Lord of Battles, King, Prince, Master, etc. 
He has been represented as sitting, standing, walking, hasting, 
awaking. He has been compared to a unicorn, lion, rock, moun- 
tain, etc. He has made himself known in his character, per- 
fections, purposes and will by things already known to man. 
This is the grand secret which, when disclosed, removes many 
difficulties and objections, and sets in a clear light the genius 
of the Jewish age of the religious world. 

"Now when God became the King of one nation it was only 
doing what, on a more extensive scale, and with more various 
and powerful effects, he had done in calling himself a Father. 
Both were designed to make himself known through human 
relations and institutions. One type, symbol, or name, is alto- 
gether incompetent to develop the wonderful and incompre- 
hensible God. But his wisdom and goodness are most appar- 
ent in making himself known in those relations and to those 
extents which are best adopted to human wants and imper- 
fections. And the perfection in these discoveries consists in 
their being exactly suited to the different ages of the world 

—238— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

and stages of human improvement. At the time when he 
chose one nation and made himself known to all the earth as 
its King and God, no other name, type or symbol was so well 
adapted to the benevolent purpose as those selected. For 
when Israel was brought out of Egypt all the nations had their 
gods; and these gods were esteemed and admired according to 
the strength, skill, prowess and prosperity of the nation over 
which they were supposed to preside. Hence that god was the 
most adorable in human eyes whose people were most con- 
spicuous. 

"Wars and battles were the offspring of the spirit of those 
ages cotemporaneous with the first five hundred years of the 
Jewish history, and with the ages immediately preceding. 
Hence the idea was that the nation most powerful in war had 
the greatest and most adorable god. Now as the Most High 
(a name borrowed from the very age) always took the world 
as it was in every period in which he chose to develop him- 
self anew, or his purposes, he chose to appear as the Lord of 
Hosts, or God of Armies. And to make his name known 
through all the earth, he took one nation under his auspices, 
and appeared as their Sovereign and the Commander-in-Chief 
of all armies."^ 

The above sentiments are very illuminating and sig- 
nificant, if not bold and advanced, when we take into con- 
sideration the general state of development of Biblical 
criticism at the time of utterance. We must remember 
they were uttered in popular assembly in the city of Cin- 
cinnati in 1829 ! If they lack the modemness and clear- 
ness in expression of W. Robertson Smith's Edinburgh 
and Glasgow lectures on "The Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church/' let us remember these were delivered 

1 :evi., p. 360. 

—239—. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

fifty-two years after Mr. Campbell expressed these ideas. 
According to his own principle, many changes in the con- 
ceptions of truth occur in the course of a half century. 
Or if one does not find in Mr. Campbell's utterance the 
clearness, force and reality that he finds in Lyman Abbott's 
address on this same theme in "The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity," let him keep in mind the fact that these were 
not published till after Mr. Campbell had been dead 
twenty-six years. 

But he continues in his remarks on progressive revela- 
tion, showing how such an evolutionary method is really 
God's way of accomplishment, both in the natural and 
spiritual realms. In this he is not unlike the great Drum- 
mond, who developed this idea and forced it so markedly 
upon the attention of men. Mr. Campbell continues : 

"But we must not think that only one purpose was gained, 
or one object was exclusively in view in any of those great 
movements of the Governor of the World. This is contrary to 
the general analogy of the material and spiritual systems. By 
the annual and diurnal revolutions of the earth, although by 
the former the seasons of the year, and by the latter, day and 
night seem to be chief objects, there are a thousand ends 
gained in conjunction with the one principal one. So in this 
grand economy, many, very many, illustrious ends were gained 
beside the capital one just mentioned. For, as in the vegetable 
kingdom, we have a succession of stages in the growth of 
plants ; as in the animal kingdom, we have a succession of 
stages in the growth of animals; so in the Kingdom of God, 
there is a similar progression of light, knowledge, life and 
bliss. * * * Why did not the Universal Benevolence in- 
troduce the best possible order of things first? Such cavahers 

—240— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

remind me of the child who asks, whether from curiosity or 
petulance : Why does not the ripe ear of corn come up from 
the seed deposited in the earth? Why does not the full ripe 
ear first present itself to our eye? Would not a kind and 
benevolent being have done this rather than have kept man 
waiting for many months for the tedious progress of ger- 
minating, growing, shooting, blossoming etc.? Could not an 
almighty and benevolent being have produced the ripe ear 
without waiting for a sprout, stalk, leaves, blossoms, and all 
the other preparations of nature to form an ear of corn? We 
are, even in the common concerns of life, but poor judges of 
propriety; and it is extreme arrogance for us to arraigti 
Omniscience at the tribunal of our reason where we cannot 
tell the reason why the blossoms precede the fruit. Do we 
not see that it is the order of the universe, natural as well as 
moral, that there should be a gradual development?"^ 

If one fails in finding the real Darwinian ideas ex- 
pressed here let him remember that Darwin did not 
speak his word till thirty years after this was said. There 
is always more light to break in upon the word of God ! 
Again Mr. Campbell says: 

"Moreover, the recent calling of the Gentiles astonished all 
the apostles, as an event they had not been looking for. It 
was the last evolution and development of the manifold wis- 
dom and goodness of God to their minds; it was the discovery 
of the last secret in the admirably gracious plan of God, with 
respect to the whole human race."^ 

He gives the subject of revelation a further emphasis 
as he shows how progressive and evolutionary it is : 

"Revelation opens a new world, a new order of relations, 

1 Evi., p. 361f. 2C. B.,p. 26. 

(16) —241— 



'Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

and gives birth to new ideas, which, as the great apostle to the 
nations says, 'The eye of man never saw, the ear of man 
never heard, nor the heart of man never conceived/ * * * 
But the development of the divine character, and of all our re- 
lations to God and each other has been progressive, and not 
consummated at once. Like the path of the just that shines 
more and more into the perfect day, has been the development 
of the character of God and the extent of human relations and 
obligations. * * * if any object to this gradual and pro- 
gressive exhibition of spiritual light, and impertinently ask 
why these things should so be, let him ask the heavens and 
the earth why at one time the stars only are visible, at an- 
other the moon, and at another the sun. Let him ask the 
earth why there is first the tender germ; next the vigorous 
shoot; next the opening blossom, and, by and by, the mature 
fruit. * * * 

"The patriarchal age Is distinguished by those institutions 
adapted to mankind in the infancy of the world. The religious 
institutions of this period found on record are in exact con- 
formity to the condition of society in its incipient stages, and 
confirm the pretensions of the volume which details them, to 
the antiquity and authenticity which it claims."^ 

Therefore, since God gradually and progressively re- 
veals himself to man as the growing consciousness of 
man becomes capacitated to grasp him, Mr. Campbell is 
enabled, with the other prophets of his day, to get a large 
amd gratifying outlook. The new era will be inaugurated 
by the dawn of more light upon the sacred oracles. He 
says: 

"All wise and good men expect a millennium, or a period 
of great happiness, upon the earth. They all argue that greater 

lC.B.,p.49S, 

—242—. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

light than that hitherto possessed will be universally enjoyed. 
They do not merely expect a universal subjugation of all na- 
tions, kindreds and tongues, to the Lord Jesus; they do not 
merely expect a state of harmony, peace and union among all 
citizens of heaven; but they look for a vast accumulation of 
light and knowledge, religious, moral, political. They do not, 
however, expect a new Bible or any new revelation of the 
Spirit, but only a more clear and comprehensive knowledge of 
the sacred writings which we now enjoy. This belief and ex- 
pectation of all wise and good men is unequivocally declara- 
tive of the conviction that the Scriptures are not now generally 
understood, and that there are new discoveries of the true and 
genuine meaning of these sacred records yet to be made."^ 

This growing consciousness of man gradually laying 
hold of the partially revealed God puts the idea of abso- 
lutely perfect revelation, not only into the far-off future, 
but among the impossibles. He says : 

"So long, then, as I believe the Bible to be from God, so 
long I must believe it to be a perfect revelation — not perfect in 
the absolute sense of the word, for this would not suit us any 
more than Paul's communicating revelations which he had in 
the third heavens; but it is perfect as adapted to man in his 
present circumstances. Many things are only hinted at, not 
fully revealed; and while here we must see as through a glass 
darkly, but in another state we shall have a revelation of his 
glory which will be perfectly adapted to us in those circum- 
stances; but even then that revelation will not be absolutely 
perfect, for a revelation absolutely perfect would make God as 
well known to his creatures as he is to himself, which I would 
humbly say appears to me impossible."* 

In his debate on the Roman Catholic religion, he takes 

IC. B.,426. 2C.B.,p.l97. 

--243-- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

up the question of infallibility. We have space here to 
take this up only briefly, and will confine the discussion 
to where he seems to come to the gist of the whole mat- 
ter. He says : 

"The question between Protestants and Roman Catholics on 
the subject of infallibility as respects the faith, is usually pro- 
pounded in the following form : 'Is there an infallible rule 
of faith f Both parties answer in the affirmative. Then 
'where shall it be found?' Each party then sets about defining 
and wrestling about this said infallible rule. The Protestant 
says the Bible alone is the infallible rule; and the Romanist 
says the church, or the Bible explained by the church, is his 
infallible rule. Thus the Protestant rests upon the Bible and 
the Romanist upon the church — neither of which make men 
infallible. * * * There is, in strict propriety, no infallible 
rule of faith. Nor is it possible there can be ; for men and 
angels have erred under all rules. I wish to be understood. 
The terms fallible and infallible do not at all apply to tltings; 
they only apply to persons. We may have a perfect and com- 
plete, or a sufficient rule; but we cannot have an infallible one. 
The fallibility or the infallibility is in the application of the 
rule — not in the rule itself. The mechanician may have a per- 
fect rule, and yet err in measuring any superficies. It is not 
possible in mechanics, nor in morals, nor in religion, to have a 
rule which will prevent error so long as those who use it are 
free and fallible agents. * * * j q^^^ jt ^^y be said, that 
in common parlance we figuratively talk of an infallible rule. 
I admit that we do, and that is the reason, when we come to 
debate the matter, the parties are confounded; for the Bible 
alone, or the Bible on the table; and the church alone, or the 
church and the Bible together, have made no one free from 
error. Therefore, there is no infallible rule in truth; but we 

—244— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

have a perfect rule, and if we apply it perfectly, it will make us 
perfect."' 

Thus the Protestant and the Catholic are at one as 
they face the dilemma. Both the Protestant rule and the 
Catholic rule must be interpreted. They must be brought 
for interpretation to the touchstone of the human soul 
The human reason must pass upon the meaning and ar- 
rive at a judgment upon the truth. If one does this un- 
aided, he becomes a rationalist; if superstitiously and 
emotionally, he becomes a mystic. But let us remind our- 
selves that this is the age of personality, and that in- 
fallibility belongs to personality, not to things. Then 
says the Catholic: I will rest in the infallibility of the 
Pope. But why do this? Why not among the great 
personalities select the greatest, the perfect Son of God? 
About him cluster and revolve all of truth, life and 
reality. Let us come, then, with Herder and with Camp- 
bell, and bring the soul into union with this greatest of 
the sons of men who is also Son of God — then we may 
divinely penetrate both the message in the Bible and the 
message in the church with our own clarified visions. 
This will be getting Christ's viewpoint of God's moral 
world-order ; Christ, who is Light of the World. Then 
we shall be, not Catholics, nor Protestants, nor Rational- 
ists, nor Mystics, but Christians ; those who have found 
satisfaction to their soul's deep craving for something in- 
fallible in the personal, in the union of their own indi- 
vidual souls with Jesus Christ. Says Dr. W. T. Moore 

1 D. onR. C.,p. 167f. 

—245— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

much to the point : ^"This desire for infallibility is par- 
tially satisfied in the Word of God. The Divine Word is 
a sure testimony. It is an unerring guide in all that per- 
tains to our religious life. But this infallibility must have 
personality. It is not enough to believe something that is 
certain. Abstractions do not bring rest. Theories are 
lifeless things. Philosophy is cold and heartless. Even 
governments or laws do not meet our case. The Bible 
itself, as an end, would not be sufficient. So far as in- 
fallibility goes, it is all assuring. It is everything we 
claim for it in that respect. Still, if it failed to bring us 
into contact with a personc^ Savior, all its infallibility 
would be insufficient to meet our case. Our faith must 
be personal, not doctrinal, if we would find perfect se- 
curity and peace. Hence the Bible introduces us to an 
infallible Person, and asks us to trust in him." And 
Hermann also shows how we can each, through his own 
moral experience, enter into this sphere of reality, this 
certain infallibility : ^"If we have experienced His power 
over us, we need no longer look for the testimony of 
others to enable us to hold fast to His life as a real 
thing. We start, indeed, from the records, but we do 
not grasp the fact they bring us until the enrichment of 
our own inner life makes us aware that we have touched 
the Living One. This is true of every personality; the 
inner content of any such personality is laid open only to 
those who become personally alive to it, and feel them- 

1 The Plea of the Disciples of Christ, p. 115. 2 Communion with God; p. 74. 

—246— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

selves aroused by contact with it and see their horizon 
widened." Hence we have not only a communicated 
Jesus handed over to us by others on printed page, but 
arising within our lives a "revelation of the living to the 
living." 

If we come to the Record in this way there is no dan- 
ger that we shall fail in hearing the voice of God speak- 
ing to our souls, be the Bible's structure ever so human 
or faulty. Out of the lives and experiences of those 
prophets of the olden time in whom God spoke in such 
fragmentary ways and in such various manners his voice 
comes floating over all the crudeness of those early ages, 
and, above all the dimness of time. Yea, more, in these 
later days we hear God's voice calling in his Son. Jesus 
Christ — the greatest, in the realm of personality; the di- 
vinest, among the sons of men ; in the sphere of morality, 
the sinless One; the highest conception of what God is; 
the noblest conception of manhood ; the grandest and most 
compelling ideal; the great all in all, fulfilling every 
dream, desire, aspiration and longing of the soul of man 
— there he stands, the Rock of Ages, the great Gibraltar, 
unmoved before every assault of destructive criticism.' 
Thus from the Record upon the parchment of paper and 
ink stands forth this matchless Character, the embodi- 
ment of God himself, the very image of his substance, the 
effulgence of his glory ; while we behold his glory, glory 
as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and 
truth. And not once, but twice, yea, more, many times, 

1 c. £. Theol. and the Social Consciousness (King), p. 188£. 

—247— 



Alexander CampbeU and Christian Liberty. 

daily is the living voice of the Father heard, as we, each in 
his own moral warfare and experience, rise up into the 
life of the Christ. Hence in our fight for character it 
becomes not so much the question of a book as the prob- 
lem of a life. 

So in Mr. Campbell's time the naive consciousness of 
men was listening for the sound of God's voice in a me- 
chanically inspired, unhuman, inerrant Bible. One in 
which every word from cover to cover was the inspired 
infallible word of God. If it had been dropped down 
through the clouds from heaven to earth it would have 
been no more divine or absolutely perfect. For, in the 
view of literalism, its writers were passive instruments in 
God's hands, even to the destruction of their own per-' 
sonalities. Like dead men, their eyes were closed to the 
light all about them. They were insensible and irre- 
sponsive to God in the world. They were mere senseless 
machines being propelled by a God above the world. 
This record which God had mechanically transmitted 
through their inactive powers was a stereotyped thing, 
a letter to be literally understood and slavishly followed. 
And men, in coming to it to hear God's voice, must free 
themselves of knowledge, culture and personality as 
much as possible, else the din of the world's voices would 
drown out the voice divine. The God became disclosed 
not in proportion to men's understanding, but propor- 
tionate to their ignorance. The Bible thus became a 
fixed, soulless letter. 

Mr. Campbell, on the contrary, came to the Bible as a 

—248— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

hook of literature. Its uniqueness and glory lay not in 
the idea that it was unlike anything of earth. To him it 
was a human book in composition, structure and style ; 
like other books. It was to be understood like other 
books with the application of the same critical rules. The 
whole Bible was not the word of God, but the word of 
God was contained in the Bible. It contained a revela- 
tion of God, but was not all revelation of God. It was not 
verbally inspired, but verbally human. Yet both the men 
who wrote it and the individual who seeks to interpret It 
are active, and have the help and inspiration of the Sp'rit 
of God. In other words, the men are inspired, not the 
letters or the mechanical make-up of the book. This 
book is not a fixed parchment, but a living, growing 
v/ord of God. It is a divine, progressive revelation of 
(jod to man, and of man to himself. To growing, de- 
veloping man it becomes a constantly fresh revelation as 
he rises in capacity to lay hold on God. Man may, there- 
fore, be on the lookout and ever expectant tor new light 
to flash from the sacred pages. Hence it is never the 
dead letter, but always, to Mr. Campbell, "the living 
oracles." 

We are now able to appreciate Mr. Campbell's insist- 
ence on coming to the Bible in the right attitude that we 
may hear God speak. As Principal Fairbairn puts it: 
"Unless God be heard in the soul he will not be found in 
the word. In revelation the living God speaks, not sim- 
ply has spoken, to living man."^ This spirit of response 

1 Reconstructions in Theology (King), p. 161. 

—249— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian I^iberty, 

and capacity for vision Mr. Campbell puts in the follow- 
ing form: 

*'We must come within the understanding distance. * * v 
All beyond that distance cannot understand God; all within 
:t can easily understand him in all matters of piety and moral- 
ity. God himself is the center of that circle, and humility is its 
circumference. The wisdom of God is as evident in adapting 
the light of the Sun of Righteousness to our spiritu'd vision as 
in adjusting the light of day to our eyes. The light reaches 
us without an effort of our own; but we must open our eyes; 
and if our eyes be sound, we enjoy the natural light of heaven. 
There is a sound eye in reference to spiritual, as well as in 
reference to natural light. Now, while the philological prin- 
ciples and rules of interpretation enable many men to be skillfu: 
in Biblical criticism, and in the interpretation of words and 
sentences, who neither perceive nor admire the things repre- 
sented by these words, the sound eye contemplates the things 
themselves, and is ravished with the spiritual and divine scenes 
which the Bible unfolds. 

"The moral soundness of vision consists in having the eyes 
of the understanding fixed solely on God himself, his approba- 
tion and complacent affection for us. It is sometimes called 
the single eye, because it looks for one thing supremely. Every 
one, then, who opens the Book of God with one aim, with one 
ardent desire, intent only to know the will of God — to such 
a person the knowledge of God is easy; for the Bible is framed 
to illuminate such, and only such, with the salutary knowledge 
of things spiritual and divine. 

"Humility of mind, or what is in effect the same, contempt 
for all earth-born pre-eminence, prepares the mind for the re- 
ception of this light, or, what is virtually the same, opens the 
ears to hear the voice of God. Amidst the din of all the argu- 
ments of the flesh, the world, and Satan, a person is so deaf 

—.250— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

that he, .cannot hear the still small voice of God's philanthropy. 
But receding from pride, covetousness and false ambition — 
from the love of the world — and coming within that circle, the 
circumference of which is unfeigned humility, and the center 
of which is God himself, the voice of God is distinctly heard 
and clearly understood. All within this circle are taught by 
God. * * * 

"He then, that would interpret the oracles of God to the 
salvation of his soul, must approach this volume with the 
humility and docility of a child, and meditate upon it day and 
night. Like Mary, he must sit at the Master's feet and listen 
to the words which fall from his lips. To such a one there is 
an assurance of understanding, a certainty of knowledge, to 
which the man of letters alone never attained, and which the 
mere critic never felt."^ 

So Harnack says : ^"Hjumility is not a virtue by itself, 
but it is pure receptivity, the expression of inner need, 
the prayer of God's grace and forgiveness; in a word, 
the opening up of the heart to God." 

From the partisan spirit in coming to the Bible Mr. 
Campbell would turn away. This was seen to be one of 
the regretted evils of his day. He says : 

"There is a vast deal more of Bible reading, in these latter 
days, for the purpose of enabling men to stand erect upon a 
particular point of faith, peculiar to themselves or their creed, 
than with a view of obtaining a clear and unbiased under- 
standing and truthful appreciation of the intent and meaning 
of Holy Writ."* 

Again, he puts one in way of the true method of hear- 
ing the voice of God. He says : 

"Among the myriads who religiously read the Bible, why 

1 Bapt.,p. 61f. 2 What is Christianity? p. 79. 3 ^ect. on Pent., p. 308. 

—251— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

is it that so little of the spirit of it seems to be caught, pos- 
sessed and exhibited? * * * Many read the Bible to have 
a general idea of what it contains, as a necessary part of a 
polite education; many read it to attain the means of proving 
the dogmas which they already profess; many read it with the 
design of being extremely wise in its contents ; many read it 
that they may be able to explain it to others ; and alas ! but few 
appear to read it supremely and exclusively that they may 
practice it, not only in their outward deportment but in the 
spirit and temper of their minds. This is the only reading of 
it which is really profitable to men, which rewards us for our 
pains, which consoles us now, and which will be remembered 
for ages to come with inexpressible delight. In this way and 
in this way only, the spirit of it is caught, retained and ex- 
hibited. Some such readers seem to be enrapt or inspired with 
its contents. Every sentiment and feeling which it imparts 
seems to be the sentiment and feeling of their hearts; and the 
Bible is to their religion what the spirit is to their body — the 
life and activity thereof. The Bible to such a person is the 
medium of conversation with the Lord of Life. He speaks to 
heaven in the language of heaven, when he prays, in the be- 
lief of its truth, and the Great God speaks to him in the same 
language; and thus the true and intelligent Christian walks 
with God and converses with him every day."^ 

In harmony with these same contentions is the idea 
expressed by Dr. Dods : ^"Roughly, therefore, the Bible 
is called the revelation of God because it brings before 
us in a written record what God has done to make Him- 
self known, and what God-inspired men have seen in 
that revelation and have thought of God. Obviously, 
this involves that in order to appreciate and use the Bible 

1 C . B., p. i2S. 2 The Bible : Its Origin and Nature, p. 102. 

—252— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

the reader of it must himself have the same spirit which 
enabled its writers to understand the revelation of God 
and to record it. The Bible is a record, but it is not a 
dead record of dead persons and events, but a record in- 
spired by a living Spirit who uses it to speak to men now. 
It is more than a phonograph which has mechanically 
stored up for ages the words and tones of the original 
speaker. It is the medium through which the living God 
now makes Himself heard and known. But to find in it 
the Spirit of God the reader must himself have the 
Spirit." 

We are now ready to learn from Mr. Campbell how he 
would have the comer to the Bible know of a certainty 
that its voice is the divine voice. What are its marks? 
Has it the proper credentials? Does it speak with an 
evidence that arrests, appeals to and satisfies the intel- 
lectual, moral and spiritual nature of man? 



—253— 



CHAPTER VI. 

CcrtaJnty of the Divine Voice. 



Let us rather measure it (Bible) by the divine unity of 
ethical purpose which runs through it from the first to last, 
which never fails through age after age, and which proves 
itself to be the work of God, the Father of our Lord and 
Savior Jesus Christ. * * * It is the Word, and its power 
to give life to the soul, that is the miracle. * * * ^\^q ^{_ 
vine essence of the Bible consists in this — the marvelous story, 
how it tells us that that moral warfare of ours is shared by 
God himself, that the divine nature descended into that war- 
fare, that it bears the agony of strife — ^nay, the shame and the 
curse of it! — all for man's salvation. * * * 

Not that it fits the older theories of inspiration, but that, 
independently of all human theories of inspiration, it carries 
home to the hearts and consciences and the souls of sinful 
men, that otherwise would remain in sin but for this strange 
and almost incredible story of God's love, God's sacrifice and 
agony for them. It therefore carries that story home to their 
hearts and souls, needing no proof for itself, appealing only 
in its own strength. That is why the Bible shall always be the 
indispensable force to man's salvation, the one so unique and 
conspicuous, the divine power for man's salvation in the min- 
istry of the Holy Spirit. Study your Bibles for this alone, and 
believe in it because it gives to you this naked truth of God's 
love. — George Adam Smith (Bible Criticism and the Average 
Man. — Johnson, p. 48f). 



—256-- 



CHAPTER VI. 

CERTAINTY OF THE DIVINE VOICE. 

Mr. Campbell was not obliged to waste energy in prov- 
ing to the satisfaction of his own soul the existence of 
God. As for Kant, the starry heavens above and the 
moral law within spoke for him. Mr. Campbell says: 

*To call upon a rational being to prove the being and per- 
fections of God is like asking a man to prove that he exists 
himself. * * * The proofs of his existence become as nu- 
merous as the drops of dew from the womb of the morning — 
as innumerable as the blades of grass produced by the renovat- 
ing influences of spring; everything within us and everything 
without, from the nails upon the ends of our fingers to the sun, 
moon and stars, confirm the idea of his existence and adorable 
excellencies."^ 

Coming to the Bible dispossessed of opinions pro and 
con he allows it to speak its own worth. After a con- 
sideration of its sublime ethical nature, he says : 

"Books, written with such a design, with a design to purify, 
elevate and glorify the debased and degraded children of men 
* * * most assuredly come with a divine character to man. 
Their claims on the attention and examination of those to whom 
they are presented most certainly are paramount to all others."^ 

"From the object and character of the book of revelation, 
its divine authority can be most triumphantly argued."^ 

1 EvL, p. 402. 2 i,iv. Or., p. 25. 3 Bapt., p. 30. 
(17) —257— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

In this most congenial atmosphere of the Bible the 
true objects of its inherent worth stand out prominently. 
Aside from the ethical considerations which are so inter- 
woven in its very texture and pervade the whole atmos- 
phere of the book, he mentions "a peculiar originality of 
character ;" "a simple, artless and sublime" style ; "a 
most striking unity of design," etc. Thus he is won 
to the Bible as friend is won to friend, and as lover to 
lover. The Bible out of its own deep riches makes its 
lasting and effective appeal. This is the fact that Dr. 
Selleck so beautifully illustrates: ^'*The diamond does 
not command our aesthetic love by saying anything, but 
by simply being a diamond and lying still before us in 
all its purity and perfection." So with the lily, the great 
literary production, the noble deed, and the lovable char- 
acter, he points out. "Its own intrinsic excellence has 
power to win us to itself, to awaken within us and draw 
out from us the best thought and feeling of which we are 
capable. Such is always the power of real excellence in 
any form — ^real worth, real beauty, real goodness, real 
love ; it makes its own impression upon the human soul ; 
and in contrast with it how poor and hollow are all coun- 
terfeits, all falsehoods, all shams, all affectations, by what- 
ever artifices they may be foisted upon us !" 

Mr. Campbell thinks it both possible and probable that 
God has spoken to man. In various ways he argues 
this out. Moreover, he appeals to the claim of rational- 
ity, that if there were no God or voice of God to man 

1 The New Appreciation of the Bible, p. 209. 

—258— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

this world would not be as it is, either a rational world 
in thinking, or a rational world in living. So the nega- 
tive picture presents itself to his mind as he says : 

"Among earth's inhabitants there is one class of beings for 
whose creation and comfort all others do exist. Man is the 
name of that class of beings. He is the end of this terrestial 
creation. If he be lost — forever lost — all is lost. Crops of 
vegetables annually spring out of the earth, and return to it 
again. Races of animals feed upon them and die. They, like 
their food, but enrich the earth. Day and night succeed each 
other. Years revolve. The earth turns upon its axis, wheels 
around its orbit, feeds and buries all its tenantry. Man him- 
self and his food aHke perish forev^-r. -t * * jf man lives 
not again — if the Bible be not true — nature labors in vain; and 
if there be no Creator, he works without a plan, and toils for 
no purpose. Nature is an abortion, and the whole machinery of 
the universe a splendid failure."^ 

"Is he doomed to spring up like the grass, bloom like a 
flower, drop his seed into the earth, and die forever? Is there 
no object of future hope? No God, no heaven, no exalted 
society to be known or enjoyed? Are all the great and illus- 
trious men and women who have lived before we were born 
wasted and gone forever? After a few short days are fled, 
when the enjoyments and toils of life are over; when our 
relish for social enjoyment, and toils of life are over; when our 
the fountain of life are most acute; must we hang our heads 
and close our eyes in the desolating and appalling prospect of 
never opening them again, of never tasting the sweets for 
which a state of discipline and trial has so well fitted us? 
These are the awful and sublime merits of the question at 
issue. It is not what we shall eat, nor what we shall drink, 
unless we shall be proved to be mere animals; but it is, shall 

1 Bapt., p. 33f. 

—259— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

we live or die forever? It is as beautifully expressed by a 
Christian poet: 

"Shall spring ever visit the mouldering urn? 
Shall day ever dawn on the night of the grave ?"*^ 

After a thorough consideration, he comes to this firm 
conclusion : 

"That the Bible contains a revelation from God is susceptible 
of every variety and degree of evidence which guides men in 
the affairs of this life. We have no species of moral evidence 
that affords to mankind a higher degree of assurance than that 
on which the Prophets and Apostles demand our unwavering 
confidence. If we admit that there is truth in history, sin- 
cerity in martyrdom, value in learning, advantage in talent, 
excellency in truth, reason in the universe, or a Creator in the 
heavens ; then must we admit the Bible is inspired by infinite 
wisdom, and presented to man by his Almighty Father and 
Benefactor." 2 

Under the power of God's Love-Volume, he is made 
to cry out: 

"The word of God. It will stand forever. Till the heavens 
pass away, not one word shall fail. Mountains, by the wasting 
hand of time, may crumble down to dust ; oceans may recede 
from their ancient limits ; the heavens and the earth may pass 
away, but God's word shall never, never pass away. It is 
God's mighty moral lever, by which he raises man from earth 
to heaven. It is his almighty, awful, sublime and gracious will, 
imbodied in such a medium as can enter the secret chambers of 
the human heart and conscience, and there stand up for God, 
and confound the sinner in his presence. The love of God is 
all enveloped in it, and that is the great secret of its charm — 

1 Kvi., p, 20. 2 Bapt., p. 36. 

—260— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the mystery of its power to save. It is love, and love alone, 
that can reconcile the heart of man to God."^ 

Among the world's best literature this book is supreme 
in evoking the noblest from man. He says : 

"For who knows not that the chief of our gratifications con- 
sist in the exercise of our minds upon the most lovely and in- 
teresting objects? And what can equal for grandeur, for 
beauty, for variety, for interest, for permanency, the glorious, 
the wonderful and lovely objects presented to our minds in the 
Holy Scripture, to allure our souls to the love of piety and 
benevolence — of all manner of virtue and goodness?"^ 

Also in inspiring the highest motives it is a book un- 
surpassed. He says : 

"We have, in the document before us, young gentlemen, a 
development of the power of motives, of more value in the 
education of the hearts and consciences of men — revealing m.ore 
and better knowledge of both God and man — than all the 
studied, logical and rhetorical lectures upon the beauty of vir- 
tue, and everything else in the way of spruce and tinseled 
oratory, even addressed to man."^ 

He is able, after a discussion of forty-eight pages, to 
come to this conclusion on the Gospel about which the 
whole Bible clusters and revolves : 

"Our faith in the gospel, we now conclude from these mere 
specimens of evidence, rests upon the clearest and most solid 
basis. It rests upon miracles well attested by others, and on 
miracles seen by ourselves. It rests upon the purity of its 
doctrine, the majesty and the excellency of its precepts, the 
riches and fullness, and the glory of its promises. It rests upon 
the perfect originality, the unit}-, the grandeur, and the divine 

iBapt,p.310. 2 EJvi., p. 245. 3 i^ect, on Pent., p, 114, 

—261— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

sublimity of its adorable Author. It was promulgated by the 
purest, the noblest and the most disinterested heralds that ever 
announced a new doctrine to men. It was sustained by their 
godly sincerity, their toils, their privations, their endurance of 
evil, and their glorious martyrdom for its sake. It enrolls 
among its bclieA.ers and defenders the greatest, the wisest, the 
best and the most gifted of mankind. All that we love, ad- 
mire and venerate in human character, appears in the boldest 
relief in the piety, humanity and universal excellence of its 
friends and admirers. It confers upon all its fully initiated 
disciples the whole circle of graces that adorn human nature 
and fills their lives with the largest and richest clusters of the 
delicious fruits of benevolence and mercy. It is just such a 
message from the throne of heaven, had we been duly en- 
lightened, we might have expected; such a glorious display of 
divinity and humanity as fully and eternally glorifies God, and 
bestows infinite honor and happiness on man."^ 

Although Mr. Campbell was living at a time just prior 
to the widespread recognition of the worth of the ethical 
in the appeal of truth, yet his discussions give a large 
place to the ethical trend in the Bible as witnessing to 
its divinity. 

No one more than he felt the impossibility of proving 
the divineness of the Bible to all. He says: 

"Some persons object to the Bible — ^because, as they say, 
its divine inspiration is yet a subject of debate. Such thinkeis 
and reasoners are grossly defective in reason and education. 
Did ever any one hear of anything that has been proved to all 
the world? * * * gy^ shall we say that no proposition is 
proved because it is not proved to the whole world? The 
gospel will never be out of debate while there is one infidel or 

1 Bapt.,p. 48. 

—262— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

skeptic in the world. This is, however, no more a disparage- 
ment of its truth, or its claims upon all mankind, than it is an 
argument against any proposition, fact or testimony, that all the 
world has not yet acquiesced in its truth. 

"We cannot believe by proxy, as nations, as empires, or as 
worlds. We must each one believe for himself. Hence the 
evidence must be considered, understood and appreciated by 
every individual for himself."^ 

So he says he will argue not the Bible's truth with 
such opponents. He turns rather to the ethical fruits 
which its truths have borne in an uncongenial and world- 
opposing atmosphere. Here he finds it standing "like 
the pillars of Hercules, the Rock of Gibraltar, or the ever- 
lasting mountains," bidding "defiance to all the billows 
of the ocean, and to all the tempests of Satan, to shake it 
from its immovable basis." "We are willing to test the 
tree by its fruits."^ 

He felt the inability of all compelling proof which was 
merely external when he said : 

"No man can love by the mere force of precept. No man 
can love merely because he is commanded to love. It must 
come, if at all, spontaneously, upon the presentation of beauty."' 

There must be the evoking of the soul's credence upon 
the real worth, the inherent excellence which the object 
presents. The response must be natural, true and im- 
pelling. Merely abstract, mathematical, logical reason- 
ing will not accomplish this. The real claims of God 
and the Bible must be confined within the personal— 
hence the evidential value of the ethical and the truly 

1 Bapt., p. 35. 2 Bapt.,p, 36 (c. f , also Evi., p. iii). 3 I^ect. on Pent,, p.373L 

— 26f— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

religious. The metaphysical and impersonal receded into 
the background, with Mr. Campbell, while the personal, 
ivith its ethical and its religious practicality, stepped in 
before. Therefore he can say: 

"Man has a mind to appreciate the goodness of God. He has 
the Bible — the throne of grace — ever accessible, and a glorious 
Mediator! And what more than these can he ask or need? 
If he will permit the evidence of God's love to permeate his 
heart, he will reciprocate that love, and if he have that love, 
he will manifest it to his brother man, as well as to the Lord 
Jesus, for, like the sun, it is a glorious center of radiation — 
an ever-active principle, diffusing light and heat throughout the 
sphere of its influence."^ 

Again, as he turns from the unconvincing outv^ard and 
sensuous beauty, he exclaims : 

"There is a beauty of holiness which eclipses the sensuous 
as the bright rays of the noonday sun eclipse the glimmering 
light of the twinkling star."^ 

Love, he finds, is the basis of Divine action; Love and 
sacrifice together, hand in hand, run through all God's 
universe, both in its natural and spiritual aspects. Love 
therefore becomes the keynote of Mr. Campbell's song 
of God and of life, with its undertone of sacrifice. He 
says : 

"God so loved the world as to give his own Son — the be- 
loved — to save it. The love of God is the parent of the uni- 
verse. It passes all understanding. We may apprehend it. 

1 Lect. on Pent., p, 361. 2 i,ect. Pent., p, 354. 

-—264— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

No man has scaled its heights, nor fathomed its depths. No 
language can express it."^ 

"I never see the tear, trembling upon the eyelid of the 
grief-stricken mother, without thinking of the love of God."^ 

"The brightness of the sun at noonday dazzles the eye of 
man; yet what is it but the shadow of the glory of God?"^ 

"The blue vault of heaven, without a single star, declares 
the glory of God's throne, while the systems of planets, in the 
order and perfection of their being, are 

" 'Forever singing, as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine.* "* 

So he can say : 

"We can reason to a certain point, and there we stop for- 
ever. * * * It is faith, I repeat, it is faith that saves, and 
anchors the soul of man in the heaven of eternal bliss."^ 

He can say of the Bible : 

"If there be anything in its matter which may seem at first 
view to be rather abstract in its nature, the illusion disappears 
in the light which follows the concentrated study — the intelli- 
gent investigation of the beautiful truths and practical realities 
found throughout the living oracles of truth."® 

He is able to conclude : 

"But, study Him as we will, in nature or revelation, 
providence or redemption, we can find no point of observation 
from which a shadow rests upon his benevolence."' 

Therefore, he re -emphasizes the fact that, 

"The universe itself is but the offspring of God's love. It 
v/as not created simply because he had the wisdom and the 
power to do it. The element of love entered into the inten- 

1 1.ect. on Pent,, p. 315. 2 ibid., p. 316. 3 ibid., p. 309. •< Ibid., p. 313. 
* Ibid., p. 315, 6 lbid.,p. 309, ^ Ibid., p. 310. 

—265— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tion, characterized the execution and approved the completion 
of his labors."^ 

Thus we find Lotze turning from the speculative idea : 
^ "We must rather adopt the old religious view, which 
finds in the loving will of God both the ground and rea- 
son of a creation of a world of spirits within whom the 
true glory of God can be an infinitely diversified enjoy- 
ment, and of an order of phenomena helping as means to 
bring this about."^ 

So Robert Browning can look out upon God's world 
and say: 

"O world, as God has made it! 

All is beauty; 
And knowing this is love. 
And love is duty." 

And again : 

"He who in all His works below 
Adapted to the needs of man, 
Made love the basis of the plan." 

Still again: 

"I have faith such end shall be; 

From the first, Power was — I knew. 
Life has made clear to me 

That, strive but for closer view, 
lyove were as plain to see." 

The question of a loving God in nature and in the 
Bible was once a matter of logical proof. It is now a 

1 I^ect, on Pent., p. 312. 2 The Phil, of Religion (lyOtze-Conybeare) , p. 124. 

—266— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

matter of seeing God, rather than of trying to demon- 
strate him in formal logical terms. Mr. Campbell had 
not much patience with those who, standing within the 
full blaze of God's presence, failed to see him. To him 
God was everywhere visible in love. 
, What, do you fail to see God as you look out amid 
the warring elements of time? And as you go to his 
Word is he, indeed, nowhere to be seen or heard? In 
his book and without his book is his love any less made 
manifest than his power? 

Right here is the world's admiration for Robert Brown- 
ing. Herein lies his peculiar force and merit as a re- 
ligious teacher. He has that rare capacity of being able 
to find Love, the great reality, everywhere. And this 
Love is God. This was no Godless world to Browning, 
and simply because he saw it to be no loveless world. 
To him all else of the universe is mere framework; but 
God and the soul stand sure, back of all the mechanism, 
and were ever looking out in love. In his poem ''Want- 
ing Is^^What?" he imagines such a loveless. Godless 
world, and calls upon Love to come and supply the want : 

"Wanting is — what? 

Summer redundant, 

Blueness abundant, 

— Where is the blot? 
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same. 
Framework which waits for a picture to frame. 
What of the leafage, what of the flower? 
Roses embowering with naught they embower ! 
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, 

—267— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer? 
Breathe but one breath 
Rose-beauty above, 
And all that was death 
Grows life, grows love, 
Grows love." 

A world without love, a Godless world, would be only 
structure, mere machinery, an awful blot. What would 
be the highest delights of Nature with its beauty, color 
and fragrance, with no soul to love and to be loved by? 
What would be the harmonies of the universe without 
the melody of mutually listening souls ? Simply a blank ! 
Without God and the personal souls of his creatures, 
without love, the universe would be without meaning, 
without purpose, unsatisfying, irrational. Since the ar- 
rival of Love all else has its place, meaning, significance 
and value. And this is just the kind of world we know. 
One in which "grows life, grows love, grows love." 

So everywhere Browning finds love peeping out from 
behind the scenery of the universe. There may be mo- 
ments when one is sunk, but the times are rare when 
"the spirit's true endowments" stand not out "plainly 
from its false ones." For him "God is in all, and through 
all, and over all." All, of good or ill, of joy or pain, of 
love or hate, yea, everything was leading him into the 
mansion of God's love. Every pathway of life led home 
to God when the soul stood sure. One might strew 
earth's pathway with roses, unobserved by human eye ; 
he might sing melodies, unlistened to by mortal man — 

—268— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

but in the very effort of this love-taslc his soul was grow- 
ing into the great Father's love. Others may have 
turned from him and lost the love-gift, but love itself 
was not lost; in the very bringing he had gained the 
prize ; God and heaven were won. His soul had come up 
through love into Love. Everything human was talk- 
ing to Browning of God and Divine love. Every human 
love led him into the Love Chamber of God's presence, 
The leaf, the star, the moulted feather, the chord of 
music, the face sweet and sad, the misplaced love, the ill 
of life, the world's noisome roar, the silence — all were 
ever leading him into the world of infinite love. From 
the things of earth his soul was always leaping up to God. 
Whenever and wherever he could find love, he was never 
at loss to find God. 

Who is there, then, able to stand in the presence of 
such love made manifest and yet ask for proof of a lov- 
ing God ? Both outside the Book and within the Book he 
stands revealed in sacrificial love. Were I to dip my pen 
into the sunlight, and write in shining letters of gold, 
upon the petals of all the flowers of earth, so that all the 
world might read, this sentence, "God is love ;" were I to 
turn from creation to the book which holds the sweetest 
story ever told, and dip my pen into the flow of Calvary, 
and then turn to the great blue sky above and write in 
large crimson. letters, so that all the world might read, 
this sentence, "God is love" — it would be no plainer writ- 
ten than it is to-day. The way of the Book is but the 
way of the world; it is the only love-way; love coming 

—269— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

by the way of the cross; through sacrifice and pain; 
through suffering and tears; through the yielding up of 
the best; reserving nothing, but giving all — this is life, 
this is love, while the Great Heart of Love stands re- 
vealed. "Herein was the love of God manifested in our 
case, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the 
world that we might live through him.'' (I John, 4:9.) 

The day of the divine demonstration is past, i. e., try- 
ing to prove God and the Bible in terms of formal 
thought and logic. Dr. King gives us his mature thought 
upon the theistic arguments. After thinking the whole 
matter through from all that has been said upon both 
the arguments — that the world is a sphere of rational 
thinking; "the real is rational" (its Hegalian form), and 
the arguments — that the world is a sphere of rational 
living; "that which is most worthy must exist" (its 
Lotzian form) — Dr. King in his latest word says: ^"To 
see, now, the fundamental nature of these two great as- 
sumptions that underlie all our thinking and living, is 
really to see that the existence of a God of reason and 
love is so certain and fundamental a fact that it really 
has to be assumed in all thinking and living — a fact that 
cannot be proved just because it is the basis of all proof. 
* * * He cannot be proved, because his existence is 
necessarily assumed in all proof. * * * i^j^g re- 
ligious postulate, thus is necessary to all the rest of 
life." 

Professor James says of the words, God, free-will, de- 

1 The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life (King, 1908) , p. 205f . 

—270—. 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

sign, etc. : ^'Yet dark though they be in themselves, or 
intellectualistically taken, when we bear them into life's 
thicket with us the darkness there grows light about us. 
* "^ * Pragmatism alone can read a positive mean- 
ing into it, and for that she turns her back upon the in- 
tellectualist point of view altogether. 'God's in his 
heaven ; all's right with the world !' That's the real heart 
of your theology, and for that you need no rationalist 
definitions." 

This has been the real difUculty in men's approach to 
God and the characters of the Bible. They have come to 
them as words, the content of which is to be explained 
in terms of thought, demonstrated in logical proposi- 
tions, and believed with an assent of mind, instead of 
treating them as friends to be seen, associated with self, 
and carried into the thick of life. This approach to the 
Bible has been with the preconceived idea that it is so 
unlike nature and life, God's other creations. On the 
other hand, men have misunderstood the Bible and God 
simply because they were holding false scientific notions. 
They have thought that in nature is seen only the strug- 
gle for life. While the real truth is that, after all, this is 
in its nature an ethical law; it is only an election for 
service ; and is supplemented by that higher law that runs 
through the universal order, the struggle for the life of 
others. Sacrifice is everywhere without the book and 
within the book. And sacrifice is love. The world, per- 
haps, is not now better able to reason in a logical, syllogis- 

1 Pragmatism (James), p. 121f. 

—271— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tic way than in the days of Aristotle. But it has its eyes 
open to facts as they are. It can see more. It can see 
God, and everywhere hear his voice. God and the Bible 
are now seen to be love, because they are sacrificial. 
This great fact of sacifice is not so appalling as it once 
was. Since its immensity has been grasped, and its 
ethical nature understood, it is found to be love that we 
are beholding. In the very light of Biblical criticism 
and of science, God stands both without and within the 
book as the creating, sacrificing and loving Father. And, 
while the material world gives us only glimpses, the 
spiritual world gives us whole and perfect views of God's 
goodness and love. Outside the personal the story of 
his wondrous love has never half been told. The love- 
burst of the natural world (the cosmos), the sun giving 
forth its light and power, the trees sending out their 
buds, the plants putting forth their flowers, all existence 
yielding up energy for other and better existence — is as 
nothing in comparison with the love-expression of the 
spiritual world; self-conscious love, voluntarily being 
spent and losing itself for others, the very incarnation of 
the Divine life given for men, the great God himself 
agonizing and suffering with and for his creatures. Why, 
"the glories of creation are lost amid the splendors of re- 
demption !" In the cosmic sphere it is existence for ex- 
istence. In the realm of the personal it is life for life, 
not unlike except in degree, not unlike except in worth. 
Therefore Drummond can sound the depths of the 
sacrifice in creation and then tell us about the "Love- 

—272— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

beauty/' the "Love-music" and the 'Xove-foods" every- 
where found. Sacrifice is not death, but life. Its ab* 
sence is death. Science is reaffirming the Master's own 
thought and principle. *'The first chapter or two of the 
story of Evolution may be headed the struggle for life, 
but take the book as a whole and it is not a tale of battle. 
It is a love story."^ Says Drummond: ""The divinity 
of Christianity, it might be added, is not to be as unlike 
Nature as possible ; but to be its coronation ; the fulfillment 
of its promise ; the rallying point of its forces ; the 
beginning not of a new end, but of an infinite accelera- 
tion of the processes by which the end, eternal from the 
beginning, was henceforth to be realized. A religion 
which is Love and a Nature which is Love can never be 
but one." 

So Dr. Campbell can say: '"The sacrifice of Christ 
is not to be looked upon as a strange incident in the life 
of humanity, but as in perfect harmony with the vicarious 
principle which is everywhere in operation. * * * j^ 
all true love, whatever be its stage of development, there 
is a vicarious element." So does Robertson recognize 
"the eternal fact that sacrifice is the law of life;" and 
Drummond shows the altruistic principle running 
through nature like a scarlet thread. 

And John Fisk: *"I think it can be shown that the 
principles of morality have their roots in the deepest 
foundations of the universe, that the cosmic process is 

1 Ascent of Man (Drummond), p. 218. 2 ibid. 3 The Heart of the 
Gospel, p. 127. 4 Through Nature of God, p. 79. 
(18) —273— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

ethical in the profoundest sense, that in that far-off morn- 
ing of the world when the stars sang together and the 
sons of God shouted for joy, the beauty of self-sacrifice 
and disinterested love formed the chief burden of the 
mighty theme." 

Again, as Fisk contrasts a narrow or partial time sur- 
vey of the world-order where Nature may appear to be 
divine irony with the eternal view, he finds the problem 
disentangled in "the omnipresent ethical trend": "'Below 
the surface din and clashing of the struggle for life we 
hear the undertone of the deep ethical purpose, as it 
rolls in solemn music through the ages, its volume 
swelled by every victory, great or small, of right over 
wrong, till, in the fullness of time, in God's own time, it 
shall burst forth in the triumphant chorus of Humanity, 
purified and redeemed." 

This is the reason Mr. Campbell turned to the ethical 
for exhibitions of the Divine love. He tells us that the 
atonement is the central idea of Christianity, and that 
"the idea of a living sacrifice giving itself for others is 
the grandest idea in the universe."^ This is why Mr. 
Campbell turns to the personal realm to know the cer- 
tainty of the Divine voice. Says Dr. Schultz : ^"Tlie 
fact that in a world of causal law personal beings sub- 
ject their lives to the good, and sacrifice themselves to it, 
is the best proof for the existence of God. * * * 
God is not more certain to us than is the unique nature 

1 Through Nature of God, p. 130. 2 i^ect. on Pent., pp. 233, 238. S out- 
lines of Christian Apologetics, p. 116f . 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

of our own thought, feeling and willing, that is, than our 
personal self-consciousness ; but he is just as certain. He 
who denies him must also renounce true rationality, hap- 
piness and morality. Hence at bottom God himself bears 
witness to his existence in the spiritual life of man {Testi- 
monium Spiritus Sancti internum). The devout man, 
the sage and the moral man are the living proofs of the 
existence of God." 

Differing minds vary in their susceptibility to various 
kinds of evidence. To some, physical or material power 
bulk large in evidential value. To others, more cultured 
and refined, things of character and spiritual values have 
the greater weight. That evidence seems most powerful 
to arrest the attention of men to-day which has the ethical 
appeal. Mr. Campbell in speaking of what he desig- 
nates the "moral internal" evidence of the Bible, says : 

"This is the evidence which ever has made the deepest im- 
pression upon the mind of the honest inquirer; and affords a 
much greater assurance to the believer of the certainty of the 
foundation of his faith than all the external proofs which have 
ever been adduced. The moral internal evidence of Chris- 
tianity is that which takes hold of the great mass of mankind, 
because it seizes the soul of man; it adapts itself to the whole 
man. It speaks to the understanding, to the conscience, to the 
affections, to the passions, to the circumstances, of man, in a 
way which needs no translation, no comment. It pierces the 
soul of man, dividing even the animal life from our intel- 
lectual nature and developing the thoughts and intents of the 
heart. There is an internal sense to which it addresses itself, 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

which can feel, examine, weigh and decide upon its pretensions 
without pronouncing a word."^ 

Mr. Campbell proceeds to illuminate this fact from the 
words of Soame Jenyns, of whom he says : 

"l^his erudite and acute statesman triumphantly proves the 
Divine authority of this religion, from the religion itself, or 
what is not unfrequently termed the internal evidence. * * * 
When speaking of the personal character of this religion, Mr. 
Jenyns very forcibly remarks : 'And here I cannot omit ob- 
serving that the personal character of the author of this re- 
ligion is no less new, and extraordinary, than the religion itself, 
who "spoke as never man spoke," and lived as man never 
lived. In proof of this I do not mean to allege that he fasted 
forty days, that he performed a variety of miracles, and, after 
being buried three days, that he arose from the dead; because 
these accounts will have but little effect on the minds of unbe- 
lievers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit 
to the relation of these facts ; but I will prove it from facts 
which can not be disputed. For instance, he is the only 
founder of a religion in the history of mankind which is totally 
unconnected with all human policy and government, and there- 
fore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever. All 
others, Mahomet, Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their 
religious institutions with their civil, and by them obtained 
dominion * over their respective people ; but Christ neither 
aimed at nor would accept of any such power; he rejected 
every object which all other men pursue, and made choice of 
all those which others fly from, and are afraid of. He re- 
fused power, riches, honors and pleasure; and courted pov- 
erty, ignominy, tortures and death. Many have been the en- 
thusiasts, and imposters, who have endeavored to impose on 
the world pretended revelations, and some of them, from pride, 

1 Evi., p. 283. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

obstinacy or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their 
lives, rather than retract. But I defy history to show one zvho 
ever made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of 
his original plan, and essential to his mission; this Christ 
actually did; he foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, 
and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate 
the divine lessons, the perfect precepts, the beautiful discourses, 
and the consistent conduct of this wonderful person, we can- 
not possibly imagine that he could have been either an idiot 
or a mad man; and yet, if he was not what he pretended to be, 
he can be considered in no other light. And even under this 
character he would deserve some attention, because of so 
sublime and rational an insanity there is no other instance in 
the history of mankind.' "^ 

After a long quotation of the above nature, Mr. Camp- 
bell turns to his opponent in debate, Robert Owen, say- 
ing: 

"One miracle there is, which Mr. Owen must believe at all 
events, on the whole premises before us. He must believe that 
a set of vile impostors, deceivers of the basest stamp, the 
greatest cheats and liars that ever lived, did give birth to the 
purest system of morality the world ever saw — did recommend 
the practice of every virtue which human reason in the most 
cultivated state of society can admire and approve. * * * 
This miracle Mr. Owen must believe, which is a miracle of a 
more incredible character than any one in the volume, espe- 
cially when we take into view the circumstances attendant on 
the progress and sufferings of these wicked impostors."^ 

"Never was there such a moral phenomenon exhibited upon 
this earth as the first establishment and progress of Chris- 
tianit5^ The instruments by which it was established, the op- 
position with which it was met, and the success which at- 

1 Evi., p. 374f (Italics Author's) . 2 ibid., p. 383. 

—277— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tended its career, were all of the most extraordinary character. 
The era of Christianity itself presents a very sublime spec- 
tacle : the whole world reposing in security under the pro- 
tecting wings of the most august of all the Caesars; peace, uni- 
versal peace, with her healthful arms encircling all the na- 
tions composing the great empire which was itself the com- 
summation of all the empires of the ancient world. Polythe- 
ism, with her myriads of temples and her myriads of priests, 
triumphantly seated in the aflfections of a superstitious people, 
and swaying a magic scepter from the Tiber to the ends of 
the earth. Legislators, magistrates, philosophers, orators and 
poets, all combined to plead her cause, and to protect her from 
insult and injury. Rivers of sacrificial blood crimsoned all the 
rites of pagan worship; and clouds of incense arose from every 
city, town and hamlet in honor of the gods of Roman super- 
stition. Just in this singular and unrivaled crisis, when the 
Jew's religion, though corrupted by tradition and distracted by 
faction, was venerated for its antiquity and admired for its 
divinity; when idolatry was at its zenith in the pagan world, 
the Star of Bethlehem appears. The marvelous scene opens 
in a stable. What a fearful odds! What a strange contrast! 
Idolatry on the throne, and the founder of a new religion and a 
new empire lying in a manger! 

"Unattended in his birth, and unseconded in his outset, he 
begins his career. Prodigies of extraordinary sublimity an- 
nounce that the desire of all nations is born. But the love of 
empire and the jealousy of a rival stimulate the bloody Herod 
to unsheath his sword. Many innocents were slaughtered, but 
heaven shielded the new-born King of the world. For the 
present we pass over this wonderful history. After thirty years 
of obscurity we find him surrounded with what the wise, the 
wealthy and the proud would call a contemptible group; tell- 
ing them that one of them, an uncouth and untutored fisher- 
man, too, had discovered a truth which would new-modify 
the whole world. In the midst of them he uttered the most 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

incredible oracle ever heard. I am about, says he, to found a 
new empire on the acknowledgment of a smgle truth, a truth, 
too, which one of you has discovered, and all the powers and 
malice of worlds seen and unseen shall never prevail against 
it. What a scene presents itself here ! A pusillanimous, wav- 
ering, ignorant and timid dozen of individuals, without a penny 
apiece, assured that to them it pleased the Ruler of the Uni- 
verse to give the empire of the world; that to each of them 
would be given a throne from which would be promulgated 
laws never to be repealed while the sun and moon endure. 

"Such were the army of the faith. They begin their career. 
Under the jealous and invidious eyes of a haughty sanhedrim 
at home, and under the strict cognizance of a Roman emperor 
abroad, with a watchful procurator stationed over them, they 
commenced their operations. One while charged with idolatry; 
another with treason. Reviled and persecuted until their chief 
is rewarded with a cross, and themselves with threats and im- 
prisonment. A throne in a future world animated him, and a 
crown of glory after martyrdom stimulated them. On they 
march from conquest to conquest, till not only a multitude of the 
Jewish priests and people, but Caesar's household in imperial 
Rome became obedient to the faith. Such was the commence- 
ment. 

"The land of Judea is smitten with the sword of the Spirit. 
Jerusalem falls, and Samaria is taken. The coasts of Asia, 
maritime cities, islands and provinces vow allegiance to a 
crucified King. Mighty Rome is roused, and shaken, and af- 
frighted. Sacrifices are unbought, altars moulder and temples 
decay. Her pontiffs, her Senate and her emperor stand 
aghast. Persecution, the adjunct of a weak and wicked cause, 
unsheathes her sword and kindles her fires. A Nero and a 
Caligula prepare the fagots and illuminate Rome with burn- 
ing Christians. But the scheme soon defeats itself; for anon 
'tis found that the blood and ashes of martyrs are the seed of 
the church. So the battle is fought till every town of note, 

—279^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

from the Tiber to the Thames, from the Euphrates to the 
Ganges, bows to the cross. On the one side superstition and 
the sword, the mitred head and the sceptered arm combine; on 
the other, almighty truth alone pushes on the combat. Under 
these fearful odds the truth triumphs, and shall the advocates 
of such a cause fear the contest now? 

"Yes, my fellow citizens, not a king nor a priest smiled 
upon our faith until it won the day. It offered no lure to the 
ambitious; no reward to the avaricious. It offered no alliance 
with the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, nor the pride of 
life. It disdained such auxiliaries. It aimed not so low. It 
called for self-denial, humility, patience and courage on the 
part of all its advocates; and promised spiritual joys as an 
earnest of eternal bliss. By the excellency of its doctrine, the 
purity of its morals, the rationality of its arguments, the 
demonstration of the Holy Spirit, and the good example of its 
subjects, it triumphed on the ruins of Judaism and Idolatry. 
The Christian volunteers found the yoke of Christ was easy 
and his burden light. Peace of mind, a heaven-born equanim- 
ity, a good conscience, a pure heart, universal love, a tri- 
umphant joy, and a glorious hope of immortal bliss, were its 
reward in hand."^ 

"No philosopher or poet, known to the living world, ever 
drew a perfect character. * * * g^t the miracle of 
miracles is, that plain unlettered fishermen drew the only per- 
fect character inscribed in the memoirs of humanity. * * * 
None of the rabbis of Israel, not one of the philosophers of the 
Greeks or Romans, of the Medes, or the Persians, could 
imagine a perfect man. But in the four gospels stands a 
monument of humanity, in the personal history of Jesus Christ, 
in which no man living or dead can find one shadow of im- 
perfection in word or deed.'" 

"The simple character of Jesus weighs more in the eye of 
cultivated reason than all the miracles he ever wrought. No 

1 Evi., p. 15f. a Mil. Har. 1858, p. 243. 

—280— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

greater truth was ever uttered than these words: 'He that 
has seen me has seen the Father also.'"^ 

Here we come to what Dr. Dods calls the "true touch- 
stone of Scripture:^ ''The only possible ultimate ground 
for believing Scripture to be the word of God is that 
there is that in the truth delivered which convinces me 
that God is its author/' 

Mr. Campbell in allowing the inherent worth of the 
several parts of Scripture to make their own appeal to 
his ever-open and responsive soul was able to distinguish 
the true from the false, and the best from the better. 
He says : 

"What is the Word of God? * * * j^ the Bible, we 
have seen, are the revelations of God; but, beside these, much 
of the history of the world. * * * That which is em- 
phatically called the Word of God, the Word of the Lord, or 
the Word, in the New Testament, is generally, if not ex- 
clusively, the Gospel, or Good News, concerning Jesus 
Christ. * * * Peter * * * defined the Word of God, or 
the Word. * * * jj^ defined the message, or proclamation, 
in this way : 'That word, or message, which God sent by 
Jesus Christ, you have, no doubt, heard the report of; how it 
was proclaimed by John concerning the mission of Jesus, who 
did so and so. To him,' said he, 'did all the prophets testify 
that whosoever believeth in him might obtain remission of 
sins.' * * * Thus Peter defined the Word of God. And 
this is and emphatically the Word of the Lord or the Word of 
God, to which, my friends, we ought, one and all, to pay su- 
preme regard."^ 

Therefore, Mr. Campbell is enabled to come to the 

1 Evi., p. IV (Italics Author's). 2 The Bible: Its Origin and Nature, p. 
156. 3 Uvi., p. 402f. 

—281— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

subjective certainty of the objective fact of Christ, and in- 
form us how we may be certain that the voice which we 
hear is the Divine voice. He says : 

"The evidence which supports the claim of this volume is not 
confined to any one species, but embraces the whole. Its truth 
becomes the subject of experience, properly so called. Jesus 
the Messiah puts it in the power of every person whom he ad- 
dresses experimentally to prove the truth of his pretensions. 
He says: 'Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. If any man put himself under 
my guidance he shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
him free.' Thus we have the means of deciding experi- 
mentally on the reality of his pretensions. Whether he were 
an impostor or the Messenger of the Great God is submitted 
thus to be tested by our experience. Where is the man who 
has proved these promises false? Myriads have experienced 
their truth. Thus you see it is doing injustice to the wisdom 
of the author of this volume to say that he has made it a 
matter of testimony only, properly so called. For its claims are 
supported by intuitive evidence, experience and testimony."^ 

Because this is true the greatest infidels are not those 
who mentally disbelieve, but those who by their ungodly 
lives of infidelity give the lie to God's truth and thus 
ever keep rolling back his coming Kingdom of Love and 
his reign of truth and righteousness. This Mr. Camp- 
bell most ungently feels, for he says: 

"Nothing has ever given so much weight to the Christian 
arguments as the congenial lives of those who profess them. 
On the other hand, nothing has defeated the all-subduing plea 
of speculative Christianity (as it may be called) so much as the 

1 c. B., p. 374. 

—282— . 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

discordant lives of those who profess to beHeve it. Had it not 
been for that one drawback, Christianity tnis day had known 
no limits on this side of the most distant home of man."^ 

"Let industry, frugality, temperance, honesty, justice, truth, 
fidelity, humility, merc}^, sympathy, appear conspicuous in the 
lives of the disciples, and the contrast between them and other 
professors will plead their cause more successfully than a hun- 
dred preachers. * h; * There is wanting a more elevated 
piety to bring up the Christian character to the standard of 
primitive times. * * * jf ^ny one would enjoy the power 
of godliness he must give up his soul to it. * * * It is the 
whole bent of the soul — it is the beginning, middle and end of 
every day."^ 

"There is a charm, there is an indescribable influence in the 
genuine fruits of Christianity, which, when exhibited in liv- 
ing Christians, the most abandoned are constrained to respect.'" 

Speaking about the necessity of a personal reformation, 
he says : 

"The form of godliness in individuals and in societies may 
exist without the power; and a congregation may, like a well- 
disciplined 2iXm.y, be clothed with all the regimentals and per- 
form all the involutions to an iota, and yet not a soldier 
among them — not a Christian in spirit and temper — in life and 
deportment."* 

Dr. Brown, in the summary of grounds for believing 
in the Christian God, concludes with this same thought, 
which brings criticism into the sphere of the personal: 
^''But there is a better apologetic than that of the schools, 
and that is to live before men a life so Christ-like that 
those who see it shall be moved to desire a like life for 

IC. B., p. 509. 2 Ch. Sys., p. 297. 3 d. onR. C. R., p. 439. 4C. B.,p. 185. 
5 Christian Theology in Outline, p, 138. 

—283— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

themselves, and so be introduced into that experience 
out of which alone a sincere faith in the Christian God 
can grow." 

This is Tennyson's thought: 

"And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all the poetic thought; 
Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave." 

And Whittier joins him: 

"The dear Lord's best interpreters 
Are humble human souls ; 
The gospel of a life like theirs 
Is more than books or scrolls. 
From scheme and creed the light goes out, 

The saintly fact survives : 
The blessed Master none can doubt. 
Revealed in holy lives." 

Hen:e Dr. Whewell asks the momentous question : 

"Ought we not to act with the large views, the lofty pur- 
poses, the deep self-consciousness of immortal beings, if we 
are immortal beings?"^ 

Herein Mr. Campbell is able to transcend even criti- 
cism itself. When Bishop Purcell asks him in debate, he 
replies : 

"But the gentlemen asked a question which has puzzled 
wise men to answer. A child, however, of four years old could 
have asked Newton a question that he could not have an- 
swered in a thousand years. 'How can you prove the Bible?' 

1 Cambridge Theol. :^ssays, p, 596. 

—28^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

says the Bishop. Does it prove itself? I will imitate him 
this once, and ask: Does nature prove itself? Does God 
prove his own existence without his works or by his works? 
Must there be another universe created to prove this? * * * 
So the Bible proves itself to be the word of God, as nature 
proves itself to be the work of God. Thus has the supreme 
intelligence stamped the impress of himself both on nature and 
revelation. David says: 'Lord, thou hast magnified th}^ word 
above all thy name.' * * >ic p^^^i ^^^ Peter wrote, and 
said much more by divine inspiration than is preserved or 
recorded. So did the ancient prophets. We need not to prove, 
in order to our faith, who collected the writings into one 
volume, any more than who collected the words of Christ 
that are reported. * * * l^et a man sit down as Mary sat, 
at the feet of Christ, and humble himself as a pupil ought; he 
will then hear the voice of God, and understand it, too. He 
will then discern how it is that all God's children are taught 
by God, and that there is none that teacheth like him."^ 

This intrinsic character of the religion of Jesus and 
not external proofs is what led Coleridge to such a 
sublime faith in God. Coleridge cries out:" "Evidences 
of Christianity ! I am v^eary of the word. Make a 
man feel the want of it; rouse him, if you can, to the 
self-knowledge of his need of it; and you may safely 
trust it to its own evidence. "^ * '•' From the very 
nature of those principles, as taught in the Bible, they 
are understood in exact proportion as they are believed 
and felt. The regulator is never separated from the 
mainspring." 

So Mr. Campbeh, in his quest for something authorita- 

1 D. on R. C, p. 266 (Italics Author's). 2 Faith and Rationalism (Fisher), 
p. 96. 

—285— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tive, goes back beyond the church and the fathers to the 
Bible. But even here we found him making a distinc- 
tion between what is narrative and what is word of God ; 
what is record and what is revelation ; what is letter and 
what is spirit; what is human and what is divine; what 
is prose and what is poetry; what is the occasional lan- 
guage conveyance and what is the essential divine truth 
conveyed. His ''Sermon on the Law" is a single ex- 
ample of how he in the Bible chose between the letter 
and the spirit, law and grace, Moses and Christ. His 
critical result was that, though God had in the past 
spoken in the prophets partially, he now had completely 
revealed himself in Christ — whom we should hear. 
Hence he not only finds in the Bible the authoritative 
voice, but he finds that voice to be the voice of the Father 
speaking in his Son. Therefore, the Bible is the au- 
thoritative book, not because it is an infallible rule, but 
it contains an infallible person. With Dr. King in quot- 
ing Principal Fairbairn: *"We come back, then, to the 
position that authority belongs to the Bible, not as a book, 
but as a revelation ; and it is a revelation, not because it 
has been canonized, but because it contains the history 
of the Redeemer and our redemption." Says Mr. Camp- 
bell: 

"Jesus Christ is the center of the whole evangelical system. 
He is 'the root and the offspring of David,' 'the Sun of 
Righteousness,' 'the bright and the Morning Star,' 'the Alpha 
and the Omega' of the volume. 'The testimony of Jesus is the 

^ Reconstructions m Theology, p. 161. 

—286— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

spirit' of all sacred history and of all divine prophecy. Now 
the history of the Bible is very rationally or philosophically 
arranged, both in its prospective and retrospective character, 
with a single and sublime reference to Jesus Christ."^ 

Again he shows how fitting this is in view of the cry- 
ing needs of men. He says : 

"He has been made Lord for us. * * * To make him 
Lord for us was to invest him with universal authority. 
* * * That he might be able to do all for us that our con- 
dition needs. * * * He is Lord of life, Lord of the Spirit, 
Lord of all. * * * We need a Leader, a Luminary, a Sun 
of Righteousness ; and we want one who can always help us 
in the time of need, when we wrestle not with flesh and blood, 
but with the rulers of the darkness of this world; with wicked 
spirits living in the air."^ 

And most optimistic is he of future Christian progress 
as he says : 

"Jesus will be universally acknowledged by all the race of 
living men, and all nations shall do him homage. This state of 
society will be the consummation of the Christian religion, in 
all its moral influences and tendencies upon mankind."^ 

This idea of the authority of Jesus was the keynote of 
the Declaration and Address : 

"Resume that precious, that dear-bought liberty, wherewith 
Christ has made his people free; a liberty from subjection to 
any authority but his own in matters of religion."^ 

These contentions of Mr. Campbell are in harmony 
with those expressed by Dr. Dods : ^"The value of the 

1 Bapt., p. 26. 2 Ch. Sys., p. 54. 3 Ibid., p. 311. 4 Historical Docu- 
ments, p. 104. 6 The Bible: Its Nature and Origin, p. 25f. 

—287— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Bible results from its connection with Christ. He is the 
supreme, ultimate revelation of God, and the Bible, being 
the amber in which He is preserved for man, is as in- 
violable and unique as He. * '*' * Its unity is to be 
found in the unity of God's purpose. Or it may be said 
that its unity is to be found in its center, Jesus Christ." 

Dr. Wendt says : ^"I am firmly persuaded that a reso- 
lute return to the teaching of Jesus himself will be the 
most powerful and efficient means of promoting and 
strengthening the Christian religion in our time, and mak- 
ing it clear and intelligible." 

This return to the Christ as authority explains the 
fact of Mr. Campbell's greater emphasis upon the New 
Testament over the old. Dr. Van Kirk, speaking of the 
constant appeal to the New Testament which our fathers 
made, says : ''To appeal to the New Testament is to 
appeal to Christ. Jesus is the alpha and omega, the center 
and circumference, the spring and the stay of the whole 
volume. I am suspicious of any cry 'Back to Christ,' 
which is not a cry 'back to the literature which God in 
His providence has given us about Christ.' As I would 
not take the long journey of the traditions of the church, 
I would not take the short cut of rationalistic criticism. 
The Christ outside of or apart from the Book, if such 
were possible, is not the Christ for me."^ 

This is the merit of Ritschl's view of the Bible. Says 
Dr. Swing: ^"We shall find that for him the source- 

1 The Teaching of Jesus, Vol. I, p. 2. 2 The Rise of the Current Reforma- 
tion, p. 123. 3 The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl, p. 86. 

—288— 



'Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

point In history from which the study of Christianity 
must be directed is the New Testament. He says quite 
conclusively here that 'the theology which is to set forth 
the authentic content of the Christian religion in a posi- 
tive form has to be obtained from the books of the New 
Testament and from no other source/ " 

J. J. Haley says : ^''The most characteristic and funda- 
mental feature in the movement with which Mr. Camp- 
bell was identified was insistence on the restoration of 
Apostolic emphasis on the Lordship of Jesus the Savior. 
His absolute sovereignty of religious and moral au- 
thority. Absolute surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord of 
all is Christianity was the trumpet call that sounded in 
every sermon." This Mr. Campbell confirms, as we have 
seen from his own words. The personal Jesus was the 
controlling idea in his religion. As he says : 

"Jesus Christ was, and is, a person; not a thing, not a doc- 
trine, not a theory. * * * Jesus Christ was a real person, 
and had personal, positive attributes. He had a real and posi- 
tive character, unique, original, transcendent. It was as fixed, 
as positive and as radiating as the sun in heaven. The origi- 
nality and unity of his character is all-sufficient, in the eye of 
cultivated reason, to claim for him a cordial welcome into our 
world, and to hail him as the supreme benefactor of our race. "2 

"Our little systems have their day, 
They have their day and cease to be; 
But they are broken lights of thee, 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they." 



1 The Christian Century, Feb. 8, '06. 2 Evi., p. IV. 
(19) —289— 



CHAPTER VII. 
The Heretic. 



upon a day in the sixteenth century, at Rome, some men, 
bearing the title of Inquisitors, who assumed to derive wisdom 
and authority from God himself, were assembled to decree 
the immobility of the earth. A prisoner stood before them. 
His brow was illumined by genius. He had outstripped time 
and mankind, and revealed the secret of a world. It was 
Galileo. 

The old man shook his bold and venerable head. His soul 
revolted against the absurd violence of those who sought to 
force him to deny the truths revealed to him by God. But 
his pristine energy was worn down by long suffering sorrow; 
the monkish menace crushed him. He strove to submit. He 
raised his hand, he, too, to declare the immobility of the earth. 
But as he raised his hand he raised his weary eyes to that 
heaven they had searched throughout long nights to read there- 
on one line of the universal law; they encountered a ray of that 
sun which he so well knew motionless amid the moving 
spheres. Remorse entered his heart ; an involuntary cry burst 
from the believer's soul : Bppur si muove ! — and yet it moves. 

Three centuries have passed away. Inquisitors, inquisition, 
absurd theses imposed by force— all these have disappeared. 
Naught remains but the well-established movement of the 
earth, and the sublime cry of Galileo floating above the ages. 

Child of Humanity, raise thy brow to the Sun of God, and 
read upon the heavens: It moves! Faith and action! The 
future is ours. — Mazzini. 



i 



—292— 



CECAPTER VII. 
THE HERETIC. 

Alexander Campbell was not only a critic, **a higher 
critic," so called. This is putting it altogether too mildly. 
From the witness of both his work and times it might 
not be speaking against fact to say that he was pre- 
eminently the American critic of the nineteenth century. 
This would be, however, a matter of opinion. But we 
may say with the utmost propriety and candor, that he 
was a bold and fearless Biblical critic^ who was fearfully 
hated and whose critical results called forth the com- 
bined antagonism of priest and people. 

One who would know the genius of that thought- 
movement, which broke loose in the Renaissance, in the 
fourteenth century, filtered down through the religious 
consciousness of the Reformation, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and which force still unspent is working in every 
department of thought and life, must, first of all, think 
of it as a critical movement. The movement of which 
Biblical criticism is only one of the mighty and significant 
tendencies. 

Says Draper: *"The Reformation had been, to no 
small extent, due to the rise of criticism, which still con- 
tinued its development, and was still fruitful of results. 

1 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II, p. 224. 

—293— 



Alexander Campbell a:id Christian Liberty. 

* * * The doctrine successfully established by Luther 
and his colleagues — the right of private interpretation and 
judgment — was the practical carrying out of the organic 
law of criticism to the highest affairs with which man 
can be concerned — affairs of religion. The Reformation 
itself, philosophically considered, really meant the cast- 
ing off of authority, the installation of individual inquiry 
and personal opinion."^ 

He who would understand Alexander Campbell, the 
man himself, his work and his writings, must come to 
him in this setting which gave him birth, fired his being 
and received his life-long endeavors. It is in the sphere 
of criticism that we see him doing work in his life's task ; 
both destructive and constructive, but destroying only 
that he may construct. Both by nature and by choice 
he belonged to this great modern movement which has 
so upset the world in its thought-realm. But it upsets 
only the false that it may set up the true. 

First of all, he distinguished himself as a true Protest- 
ant. He was part and parcel of this unique tendency. 
And what fundamentally do we find this to be? Simply 
a protest against a united church. As a Protestant, 
therefore, he would tear the united church to shreds. 
He would strip apart every fiber of its fellowship. It 
was a protest destructive of church unity. In brief, it 
was a revolt against the Roman idea of church union. 



1 Note — Dr. A, T. Swing suggests here, "The reformation by Luther was 
notquitethat of 'liberty' of conscience, as is sometimes falsely said, but 
'conscience bound ihe Word of God' which is a very different world!" 

294— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

It was a reaction against the long-honored united institu- 
tion which crushed out individual freedom ; in favor 
of the individual, that he might, turning from the united 
mass, think, speak and act for himself. Herein is unity 
sacrificed to liberty. It is the same warfare being fought 
out in the ecclesiastical world that was fought in the 
civil world when the Roman idea of government gave 
way to the Teutonic idea. 

The fundamental consideration with Mr. Campbell 
was not the institution, but the individual ; not the union 
of the whole, but the liberty of the many. He was not, 
as has formally been maintained, first of all a pleader 
for union. But, first of all, he was a pleader for liberty^ 
as already has been seen. How in the true American 
spirit he joined these two ideas of union and liberty is 
foreign to our present discussion.^ First of all in his 
thought was the liberty of the individual. Thus he 
identified himself with the Protestant tendency which 
gave the blow to the Roman hierarchy, the united Catho- 
lic Church. In this mighty effort union was oflfered upon 
the altar of individual liberty. Fellowship was claven. 
Though the individual gained his liberty, he lost his fel- 
lowship. The desire for fellowship is as strong, in the 
breasts of men, as the longing to be free. Hence the 
rise of sectarianism after the blow to Papal Rome. 

Upon this circumstance Draper makes a significant re- 
mark : ^"Yet what do we, who are living nearly a cen- 

1 For a full discussion of this subject, c. f . Christian Union, by J. H. Garrison. 

2 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II, p. 227. 

—295— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

tury after that time, find the event to be ? Sectarian de- 
composition, passing forward to its last extreme, is the 
process by which individual mental liberty is engendered 
and maintained. A grand and imposing religious unity 
implies tyranny to the individual; the increasing emer- 
gence of sects gives him increasing latitude of thought — 
with their utmost multiplication he gains his utmost lib- 
erty. In this respect, unity and liberty are in opposi- 
tion; as the one diminishes, the other increases. The 
Reformation broke down the unity; it gave liberty to 
masses of men grouped together in sufficient numbers to 
insure their position; it is now invisibly, but irresistibly 
making steps, never to be stayed until there is an abso- 
lute mental emancipation for men." 

In such an attitude pleading for peace, harmony and 
fellowship, and yet trying to overthrow the already es- 
tablished institution which granted this, Mr. Campbell 
presented a strange anomaly. His attack was not only 
directed against the one hierarchal institution, which 
failed in granting liberty to man to think, but against 
every such institution. To him the evils of sectarianism 
lay in that same conservative tendency, forbidding man 
to think beyond the creeds. His battle was for a protest- 
antism of personal liberty whose limits were bounded 
only by the mind of the Master of freedom. No union, 
therefore, was able to stand under his critical inspection 
that did not grant this freedom to the individual. 

This is one reason why many thought him a destruc- 
tionist. "He was assailed as a disorganizer, but it was 

—296— 



i 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

not his aim merely to overthrow the existing order of re- 
ligious society. * * * He desired simply to dethrone 
the false that he might re-establish the true, to replace 
the traditions of men by the teachings of Christ and the 
Apostles ; to substitute the New Testament for creeds and 
human formularies. His work was positive, not nega- 
tive."^ 

Nevertheless, the heresy-hunters were out looking for 
the susceptible, and he was soon, after a short candi- 
dacy, initiated into the order, and branded as The Heretic. 
For here was a man overthrowing the time-honored in- 
stitutions which held the mind and the soul of man as in 
an Iron vise. Here was one protesting In the interests 
of the individual, that he might have liberty to think and 
act. Here was another appearing in the line of those 
truth-finders who dared to bare his own soul and think; 
and then lift to the world the song of truth. 

History is always repeating itself. Not once did a 
Luther arise within the Catholic church to destroy Its 
false unity, and to gain liberty. The most significant sign 
in the ecclesiastical world to-day Is Father Tyrrell, Don 
Romolo Murri, Abbe Loisy, and others arising within the 
Holy Church to measure Its authority with the rules of 
Modern Criticism. "A bald contention," says Father 
Tyrrell, in his reply to the Pope's Encyclical, "that all 
ecclesiastical development is a mechanical unpacking of 
what was given In a tight parcel 2,000 years ago."^ And 

1 The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Funk and 
Wagnalls Co,, Dec. 1908), Vol. II, p. 371, 2 Passing protestantism and Coming 
Catholicism (Newman Smyth), p. 7S. 

—297— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Murri declares : 'We desire a Christianity more pure, 
more intense, more practical, more Christian, more con- 
formed to its original, more conformed to the Gospel."i 

Not only is modern learning and criticism doing its 
noble work on the dark mission fields in dethroning the 
false and preparing for the event of the crowning of the 
Christ, but in the lands of light and liberty the dark 
places are being searched out and put under its wonder- 
fully revealing power. 

These men are scholarly Catholics. Newman Smyth 
designates this New Movement as Madernism. Yet it is 
but the old tendency of revolt come to life in a new and 
unlooked-for quarter. He defines the movement thus : 
^''Modernism is a certain attitude of mind corresponding 
to our times ; it is a tendency of thought rather than a 
body of doctrine ; it is an intellectual method rather than 
a creed ; it is a vitalizing spirit, making all things new, 
rather than a full-grown and complete theology." In 
fact, it is but the old spirit of freedom which we have 
been considering in connection with Mr. Campbell rising 
up within the holy church. Although she has existed 
in the midst of our modern institutions of learning, she 
has had her eyes closed to their facts. She has existed, 
but not lived among them. 

She has struggled hard to keep back the entrance of 
fight, knowing that the institution could not longer stand 
upon the application of modern learning and criticism. 

1 Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism (Newman Smyth), p. 64. 

2 Ibid., p. 68. 

—298— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

She has been, therefore, the foe to progress, modern 
learning and BibHcal criticism. 

Of course, these critics are doing a heap of upsetting 
and consequently receiving in exchange the old-honored 
brand of "heretic." Mr. Smyth, as truly as prophetic, 
says : ^"Those who realize the tremendous power of 
Rome will say modernism will be crushed, as Jansenism 
in France has been; as history shows that the Romai? 
Inquisition has put out, time and again, individual con- 
sciences. To such persons the powers of darkness seem 
to be greater than the all-surrounding light. It does not 
seem so to the modernists who have caught its beams 
upon their thoughts. They believe in the penetrating 
and pervasive energy of the light of the history, science 
and personal faith, which has already shone fully upon 
themselves. They may be cast down, but not destroyed. 
Loisy relinquishes his professorship and continues think- 
ing and writing. Fogazzaro consents to have his Saint 
put under the ban, and lie lectures upon the views of 
Giovanni Selva. // Rinnovamento changes an editor, 
bows to the authority, and announces that it will con- 
tinue to be published. The priests who told the Pope 
'what we want' — the same or another similar group of 
them — receive his condemnation, and immediately review 
it in another book. That is put upon the Index, but not 
until after its translation into French and English. Thus 
the mirrors which reflect the light may be shifted, but the 
light of modern learning is ceaselessly reflected within 

1 Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism (Newman Smyth), p. 99f. 

—299— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

the Roman church. Moreover, the repressive policy of 
the Hloly Father opens more windows than it closes." 

The Outlook, commenting upon Paul Sabatier's recent 
book on ''Modernism/' says :^ 

"His definition of modernism is admirable : 'Modern- 
ism is a spiritual spring which penetrates, vivifies and 
rejuvenates all things. ^ ^ ^ fhe movement in the 
Roman Catholic Church is toward individual liberty of 
conscience and thought, and is in so far Protestant. The 
movement in the Protestant churches is toward the 
demolition of the sectarian fences and the unity of the 
faith, and is in so far a movement toward Catholicity. 
It is this which makes it a world movement and equally 
regenerating in both communions." 

We have in these men but a fresh illustration of Mr. 
Campbell flashing the light upon the conservatism^ of 
his day. It is peculiarly noticeable with what zeal many 
joined him. They were willing, even eager, to hear his 
invectives against the sects, especially if not their own, 
and would even join in the fray. It was all right for him 
to assail the authority of the church. But when he came 
to apply these same principles of criticism to the Bible, 
"the dear family Bible, that lay on the stand" — why, then 
it was a different thing. This Bible they felt must be 
taken upon the authority of the past. It must be just 
what the fathers had said it to be, without question. 
What consistency! — the good old orthodox 'Protestants 
refusing to grant the Catholics recognition because they 

1 Outlook, Jan. 30, 1909. 

—300— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

were concerving the tradition of the fathers in church 
authority^ yet cherishing that same traditional authority 
in their understanding of the Bible It seems in view of 
this that A. is only a step from the Protestant to the 
CathoIiC. 

Regardless of the traditions, in face of bitter opposition, 
Mr. Campbell labored for a Bible, newly clothed and in- 
dividually interpreted. He seems in his tremendous ef- 
forts like a man trying to tear the Holy Bible to pieces. 
To many he was only a destructio^ist. Reports spread. 
Suspicion filled the air. Alarm sounded far and near. 
He was assailed. He was accused of being a "Uni- 
tarian," of "making a New Tes^tament," and what not. 
Every bold epithet was applied to him. The term, 
"Higher Critic," was not then at hand. Those were 
days of contentment with small things, so they thrived 
richly on just "Cmic." The word "Infidel" was ex- 
clusively and rigidly set apart for those outside the fold. 
So they gathered up all their hate, spite, scorn and venom, 
and, bundling all together, wrapped it neatly up in the 
small parcel — "The Heretic." That was a bad name in 
those days. And woe be unto the one who might re- 
ceive its application. Now, this is just what these good 
old narrow orthodox brethren did to their brother, Alex- 
ander Campbell, who had the misfortune to possess a 
brain that would really think and often think out loud; 
who believed in the progress of things, that they were 
going upward to God and not downward to destruction ; 
who sought to know the truth of things for himself, in- 

—301— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

stead of taking it over from the past, all wrapped up and 
labeled. This they were doing because of such devotion 
to the Master! Because their lives were so filled with 
his Spirit! Hence the cry that rang down through the 
nineteenth century following him everywhere he went, 
"He is not orthodox," "Unsound," "Beware," "The 
Heretic." 

But Mr, Campbell was only passing through an ex- 
perience which has been the rich or unrich (according as 
one looks at it) heritage of many of the true and loyal 
sons of God. Yet an experience which, above all the 
pain of it, granted a large return in character. What is 
life for, anyhow? 

"Life is not an idle ore, 
But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears, 

And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 
And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
To shape and use." 

Moreover, an experience, radiant in the light cast 
about him. Hie grants us a peep into this revealing at- 
mosphere as he says : 

"Who that has his eyes open has not seen that men of the 
lowest moral endowments are the most zealous in the cause of 
orthodoxy? and that the reason is they are conscious that un- 
less they can raise a clamor about orthodoxy they are likely 
to pass off the stage as they ought? I have always found 
those of the most orthodox scent the slowest in the race, and 
the loudest in the sound."^ 

1 C. B., p. 275. 

—302— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

In the presence of such Inspiration he becomes a true 

prophet. He says: 

"My own individual orthodoxy is too orthodox for the 
orthodox prelates of a sectarian world. I thank God, as Paul 
once said of himself, in his own way of boasting, I am more 
orthodox than any of them. I have all their orthodoxy, and a 
little more besides. And I know the next generation — or, at 
farthest, the one after that — will acknowledge it."^ 

The light about him grows so bright that he is able to 
distinguish between a true and a false orthodoxy. He 
says: 

"I opine there is as much orthodoxy in hell as there is in 
heaven, man for man, angel for angel. Satan himself is, in 
the proper significance of the term orthodoxy, quite as ortho- 
dox as the angel Gabriel. 

"Does not Satan believe, or assent to, the whole Bible doc- 
trine — facts and documents — not merely the theory, but the 
facts therein written? Does he not show a more intimate 
acquaintance with the contents of the Bible, in his tempta- 
tions addressed to the Lord Jesus, than do half the ancient 
or modern rabbis of the tribes of Israel? In a debate with 
nine-tenths of the patented orthodoxies of these United States 
would he not most probably bear away the palm of victory? 
The only true orthodoxy in any community j.s * * * o 
cordial reception of Jesus of Nazareth."^ * * * 

He finds among those praying for light an example of 
history repeating itself. He says : 

"We are very certain that to such as are praying for il- 
lumination and instruction in righteousness, and not availing 
themselves of the means afforded in the Divine Word to ob- 
tain an answer to their prayers, our remarks on many topics 

1 Add., p. 287. 2 Mill. Har., 1858, p. 492, (Italics Author's;. 

—303— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

will appear unjust, illiberal, and even heretical; and, as there 
are so many praying for light, and inattentive to what God 
has manifested in his word, there must be a multitude to op- 
pose the way of truth and righteousness. This was the case 
when God's Messiah, the mighty Redeemer of Israel, ap- 
peared. Ten thousand prayers were daily offered for his ap- 
pearance, ten thousand orations pronounced respecting the 
glory of his character and reign ; and, strange to tell ! when he 
appeared the same ten thousand tongues were employed in his 
defamation ! Yea, they were praying for his coming when he 
stood in the midst of them, as many now are praying for 
light when it is in their hands, and yet they will not look 
at it."^ 

This parallel becomes more striking as he gets him- 
self adjusted more fully to the surroundings. ,He says: 

"The Pharisees, contemporary with Jesus Christ and the 
Apostles, were a sort of ultra religionists. Their leaven was 
hypocrisy. It wrought in them a sort of supercilious disdain 
and contempt for all other professions or sectarisms outside 
their own denomination. They thanked God for their own 
assumptions and presumptions ! 

"Their characteristics were hypocrisy, cupidity and proselyt- 
ism, with a very fair and plausible appearance of exterior 
sanctity. These were their four cardinal points. False pre- 
tences in the form of exuberant zeal for hoary tradition. 

* * * 'They builded the tombs of the prophets; they 
adorned the sepulchres of the righteous, 'while in character 
the sons of those who killed the prophets,' and did themselves, 
when opportunity served, persecute Apostles from city to city. 

* * * Such were the assumed orthodox scribes; and such 
were their orthodox converts, characterized by the Lord him- 

1 C. B., p. 2. 

—30 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

self 'hypocrites,' 'compassing sea and land to make proselytes' 
to their peculiar orthodoxies. 

"Orthodoxy, too, chameleon-iike, of one color at Rome, an- 
other at Constantinople, of one color at Dort, another in Nor- 
mandy, was a passport to the conscience of uneducated and un- 
sanctified myriads. Orthodoxy, at best, was never more nor 
less than right thinking in all its latitudes and longitudes. It 
was neither right believing nor right feeling, neither adoring 
God nor beautifying man."^ 

As Mr. Campbell makes a tour he sees strange and re- 
pelling sights. Of certain of his observations he says: 

"There is a great difference between reading geography and 
traveling over the surface of a country; between hearing of 
and seeing the religious world; between viewing men and 
things with our own eyes, and looking at them through the 
media of books and newspapers; between contemplating so- 
ciety in the closet, and mingling with it in actual operation. 
We have been long convinced that to live to purpose in any 
society, it is necessary to be well acquainted with the state of 
that society; it is necessary, in a certain sense, 'to catch the 
living manners as they rise.' Man is a creature incessantly 
developing himself — perpetually exhibiting new and strange 
appearances. And, while it is true that 'as in water, face an- 
swers to face, so does the heart of man to man,' it is equally 
certain that the varied year and every-shifting scenery of the 
heavens and the earth are but emblems of the changes con- 
tinually exhibiting in human society. * * * 

"Regardless of the spirit and character of this age and of 
this great community, many are for holding the people down 
to the standards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
Hence we find the creeds and forms that suited the age and 
circumstances of our ancestors, contemporary with Charles I., 

1 Mill. Har. 1858, p. 332. 

(20) —305— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

bound with new rivets on the necks of our countrymen. This 
is not more absurd than to oblige men to wear the apparel 
which suited them when boys, and to compel men when they 
have no taste for the pranks and amusements of children to 
go through all the forms. 

"We are happy to find that, in spite of the reigning doctors 
of traditions, the people are gradually awaking to a sense of 
their religious rights and privileges. * * * Many who 
thought their church almost infallible now readily admit that 
she not only may, but that she actually does, frequently err. 
And there is a spirit of inquiry marching forth, before which, 
most assuredly, the rotten systems of tradition and error must 
and will fall. * * * 

"When a tyrant is dethroned, and his vassals liberated, he 
finds his quietus in a guillotine, and they convert his palaces 
into towers and strongholds for each other in rotation. So 
in the church. They who call the Pope antichrist, and renounce 
any successor of St. Peter, set themselves up as Popes, and 
thus a whole congregation of protesters become a college of car- 
dinals, and they will have no Pope because each one wishes to 
be Pope himself. 

"The people everywhere have an insatiable appetite for 
sound doctrine, and eat whole sermons after sermons, and run 
after this and that preacher for sound doctrine, and are as 
hungry as before. Is he sound — is he sound in faith? This is 
the all-important question, on the solution of which depends the 
character of the preacher for orthodoxy or heterodoxy — and 
his reputation is all in all to him. The preachers, too, generally 
labor all their lives to die with the reputation of having been 
great and orthodox preachers; and the people follow them up 
to hear sound doctrine, to sit as jurors upon their views and 
abilities, and to bring in a verdict, which, if true, makes them 
good Christians, and the preacher, either great or little, sound 
or unsound in the faith. Errors of opinion become, in many 

—306— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

places, the cause of ecclesiastical degradation and of exclusion 
from the church, while immoralities are overlooked and 
ascribed to the 'remaining corruptions' of human nature. Er- 
rors in opinion are treated as felons, while immoralities are 
indulged as a wayward child, the darling of his mother. This 
is not so much a sectarian peculiarity as it is the characteristic 
of the times. It would be of infinite importance to the re- 
ligious community and to the rising generation, if, from the 
teacher's chair, in the church, and in every Christian family, 
less was said about this sound doctrine, and the time occupied 
therein devoted to recommending, enforcing and practicing 
that 'holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.' "^ 

But he finds consolation in the two never-failing facts, 
the reversed judgment of the centuries over the hours 
and the Divine approval. He says : 

"One age burns heretics; the next makes them saints and 
martyrs, and erects monuments to their memory. No wise 
man, well read in civil or ecclesiastical history, can expect a 
different state of things. The censure of one age is all praise 
in the judgment of the next; as the praise of one generation is 
often the shame and the reproach of the following. Christians 
live for immortality, for eternity, and, therefore, to them it is 
a matter of little or no account how their contemporaries may 
think or speak of them. The only happy man is he whom 
the Lord approveth."^ 

Mr. Campbell became, on account of his new, strange 
and disturbing ideas, the Arch-Heretic of his time. 
Many were the fine spreads that the "weak-minded" en- 
joyed at his expense at church, in the parlors, and even 
in the press. Henry Van Dyke gives us a suggestion 

1 C B.. p. 198f. 2 Add.. 588. 

—307— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

here : ^"Cannibalism is dying out among the barbarous 
tribes: the Fiji islanders have given it up; but it still 
survives among the most highly civilized peoples. You 
might find yourself in some difficulty if you invited a 
company of friends to a feast in which the principal dish 
was to be a well-roasted neighbor. Everybody would 
refuse with horror, , and you would probably be es- 
corted to the nearest lunatic asylum. But if you wish to 
serve up somebody's character at a social entertainment, 
or pick the bones of somebody's reputation in a quiet little 
corner, you will find ready guests and almost incredible 
appetites. How cruel are the tender mercies of the 
wicked ! How eager and indiscriminate is the hunger of 
gossip ! How quick some men are to take up an evil re- 
port, and roll it as a sweet morsel under their tongues, 
and devour their neighbors, yes, even their friends !" 
Such conceit and bigotry, which is refined selfishness, 
yea, more, which is no less than murder under the guise 
of loyalty, is depicted by Mr. Campbell in the word of a 
friend, as follows : 

"By bigotry, is meant a man's obstinate attachment to an 
opinion, or set of opinions, which indisposes him to give a candid 
hearing to anything else, and makes hmi unwilling that his 
brother should have the same liberty of judgment which he 
claims for himself. * * * j^ ^ot only makes null and void 
the arguments of an opponent, but, alas ! it boldly impeaches 
his motives, and assails his moral character. Not only are his 
talents to go for nothing, not only are his labors to be despised; 
but his virtue and piety, his zeal and heavenly-mindedness, 



1 The Story of the Psalms, p. 48 



—308- 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

though supported by an unblamable life — all, all must be dis- 
posed of with indifference or contempt, by the high, and bit- 
ter, and sovereign dictates of bigotry! And yet this dark and 
dreadful evil is not only winked at, but nourished in the hearts 
of all the churches in Christendom! * * * 

"They say to the soul of every member, so far shall j^ou go 
in your meditations, and no farther; your business is not to in- 
quire what is true, but merely to inquire what are the senti- 
ments of our church, that you may defend them to the end of 
the world. You are not only to avoid contradicting them, 
but you are to make no addition to them; because our lovely 
plan is not only free from errors, but also contains the whole 
body of truth completely. You must silence every heretical 
thought of improvement, and merely walk in the good old 
way, as we have pointed it out to you. Thus, whatever error 
may be in the church, it seems it must be held fast to eternity. 
The intellectual faculties of the members must be hampered, 
and their hearts corrupted by doing violence to honest con- 
viction, and by warping both reason and revelation into the 
pale of their sectarian boundaries. And even the truth itself 
is hindered by these evils from producing its native and salu- 
tary effects; for truth, when believed merely with the faith of 
bigotry, is little better than error. Its evidence is not ex- 
amined, and its value, as truth, is not apprehended; but merely 
its subserviency to the support of our beloved cause. For if 
we made our cause subservient to the truth, instead of making 
the truth subservient to it, we should be willing for our 
churches to follow the truth wheresoever it might lead the 
way. * * * Thus the inquiry. What is truth? is neglected 
and laid aside."^ 

This was the peculiar merit of Mr, Campbell, and it 
was this attitude which brought out such opposition; 
making truth the ideal aim and seeking to bring the 

1 c. B., p. 213£. 

—309— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

cause up to the measurement of the standard of truth, 
instead of making truth conform to the holdings of the 
cause. This position was destructive to the narrowness 
of the cause, but constructive to the broadness of truth. 
What was lost in the merely churchly was gained in 
truth. What was overthrown in churchanity was gained 
in Christianity, the pure religion of Jesus. This, too, 
was his stand upon the Bible. H'e said let us look at the 
Bible through the eye of truth. Let the Bible as it really 
is speak to us. Let us not, through our distorted vision 
of what we would like to have it be, try to make it appear 
something it is not. Even though we feel that our vision 
of what it ought to be is the ideal, still, in the interests 
of truth, let us cast aside our ideal vision and penetrate 
the Bible with unveiled soul, allowing it to stand out 
in its true colors. 

In the year 1859 the London Dispatch characterized 
Mr. Campbell as : ''One who resolved to discard all 
human creeds and confessions, * * * contended that 
the impartial and enlightened interpretation of the Bible 
would infallibly lead mankind to a knowledge of its 
truth, * * '^ proceeded in a free examination of the 
Bible. "^ "^^ * Even among these people, however, 
Mr. Campbell's views were singular and extreme in con- 
sequence of their liberality; his talents were so com- 
manding, and his influence soon became so great that 
the utmost jealousy was excited."^ 

Mr. Campbell himself gives us touches of his treatment 

1 Mill. Har. 1859, p. 486f. 

—310— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

as a heretic, how he was misrepresented, misinterpreted 
and defamed. Of this he says : 

"Good has been often called evil, and evil good. Truth has 
been piousl}- called error, and error truth. Pure religion has 
been frequently called heresy, and heresy pure religion. Paul 
had to confess that he worshipped God in the way which the 
populace called heretical and blasphemous. Because we have 
said that we Christians are not under Moses, but under Christ; 
not under the law as a rule of life, but under the gospel, we 
are said to have spoken 'blasphemous words against Aloses and 
the law.' Because we have said that the Jewish Sabbath is no 
more, we are represented as without religion, profane and im- 
pious; and, because we have called much of what is called 
warm preaching, and warm feelings, and great revivals, en- 
thusiasm, we are said to deny 'experimental religion' or the 
influence of the Holy Spirit, by the word, upon the minds of 
believers. 'Yes,' say our enemies, 'you deny the moral law, the 
Christian Sabbath and experimental religion.' "^ 

A friend writes to inform him of a conspiracy formed 
"to put a stop to the alarming spread of those principles" 
of his. These they have honored with the title of 
"damnable heresies." Furthermore, the body ''Resolved, 
That we will not fellowship the doctrines propagated by 
Alexander Campbell." He responds as follows: 

"What means this intolerant spirit? I ask again, What is 
the meaning of it? Is every man who acknowledges in word 
and deed the supreme authority of Jesus of Nazareth as Lord 
Messiah; who has vowed allegiance to him. who is of good 
report as respects good works, to be sacrificed upon the altar 
of opinion, because his opinion upon some speculation, fact or 
doctrine, differs from mine? Because, while he admits that 

IC. B.,p, 39. 

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Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Jesus died for our sins, he will not dogmatize upon the nature, 
extent and every attribute of 'the atonement,' is he to be 
deemed unfit for the kingdom of heaven? Admitting 'an elec- 
tion of favor,' is he to be given over to Satan because of some 
opinion about the conditionality or unconditionality of that 
election. In one word, are we to understand that an exact 
agreement in opinion, a perfect uniformity is contended for 
as a bond of union? If so, let our Baptist brethren say so, 
I,et them declare to the world that 

"^Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.' 

"That a disagreement in the tenth opinion, or in the ten 
thousandth opinion, breaks the bond of union. If this be the 
decree, let it be published and translated into all languages- 
let it be known and read by all men. If, again, a perfect uni- 
formity be not decreed, but a partial uniformity, let it be pro- 
claimed in how many opinions an agreement must be ob- 
tained; then we shall know who are, and who are not, to be 
treated as heathen men and publicans. 

"What makes divisions now? The man who sets up his 
private judgments as the standard of truth, and compels sub- 
mission to them, or the man who will bear with a brother who 
thinks in some things differently from him? No man can, with 
either reason or fact on his side, accuse me of making di- 
visions among Christians. I declare non-fellowship with no 
man who owns the Lord in word and deed. Such is a Chris- 
tian. He that denies the Lord in word or deed is not a Chris- 
tian. A Jew or a Gentile he may be, a Pharisee or a Sad- 
ducee he may be, but a Christian he cannot bel If a man con- 
fess the Lord Jesus, or acknowledge him as the only Savior 
sent by God; if he vow allegiance to him, and submit to his 
government, I will recognize him as a Christian and treat 
him as such. If a man cause divisions and offenses by setting 
up his own decisions, his private judgment, we must consider 
him as a factionistj and as such he must be excluded — not for 

—312— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

his difference in opinions, but because he makes his opinion an 
idol, and demands homage to it. 

"There are some preachers in the East and in the West — 
some self-conceited, opinionated dogmatizers — who are deter- 
mined to rend the Baptist communities into fractions by their 
intolerance. They wish, moreover, to blame it upon us. As 
well might they blame the sun for its light and heat as blame 
us for creating divisions. When we shall have cut off from the 
church any person or persons because of a difference of opin- 
ion, then they may say, with reason, we cause divisions. Till 
then it is gratuitous. They are the heretics, not we. Yes, 
they are the heresiarchs, and will be so regarded by all the 
intelligent on earth, and by all in heaven."^ 

In his sermon on "The Law" he says: 

"But as this discourse was, because of its alleged heterodoxy 
by the regular Baptist Association, made the ground of my 
impeachment and trial for heresy at its next annual meeting, it 
is as an item of ecclesiastic history interesting. It was by a 
great effort on my part that this self-same Sermon on the Law 
has not proved my public excommunication from the de- 
nomination under the foul brand of 'damnable heresy.' But 
by a great stretch of charity on the part of two or three old 
men, I was saved by a decided majority. 

"This unfortunate sermon afterwards involved me in a 
seven years' war with some members of said association, and 
became a matter of much debate. I found at last, however, 
that there was a principle at work in the plotters of said 
crusade, which Stephen assigns as the cause of the misfortunes 
of Joseph. 

"It is, therefore, highly probable to my mind that but for 
the persecution begun on the alleged heresy of this sermon, 
whether the present reformation had ever been advocated by 

ic. B.,p6Sl. 

—313— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

me, I have a curious history of many links in this chain of 
providential events, yet unwritten and unknown to almost any 
one living — certainly but to a very few persons — which, as the 
waves of time roll on may yet be interesting to many. It may 
be gratifying to some, however, at present to be informed that 
but one of the prime movers of this presumptive movement yet 
lives ; and, alas ! he has long since survived his usefulness. I 
may farther say at present that I do not think there is a 
Baptist association on the continent that would now treat me 
as did the Redstone Association of that day, which is some 
evidence, to my mind, that the Baptists are not so stationary 
as a few of them would have the world to believe/'-' 

Mr. Campbell was experiencing in his heresy trial what 
J. J. Haley was feeling when he said: "Are not some 
of us trying to circumscribe the boundaries of Hberty 
with as much zeal and persistence as our fathers did to 
enlarge them ? Are we really afraid for educated men to 
utter themselves honestly and freely? Is the truth en- 
dangered by such freedom ? Am I bound to agree with a 
leading preacher, or a theological professor, or editor of 
a prominent paper on pain of being hounded as a heretic 
and put out of the synagogue as a dangerous man ? Does 
not the liberty of a free man in Christ come a little high 
at this price? The last conversation the writer had with 
Alexander Procter, the great man said: 'The most pa- 
thetic, the most tragic thing I know is the fact that the 
moment a man comes to a view of God, and the uni- 
verse, Christ and the Bible, that he can hold and respect 
himself, that moment he becomes a marked man, to be 

1 Historical Doc, p. 218f. 

—314— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

branded by preachers and religious newspapers as a 
heretic and an infidel.' The week before in the city 
where this remark was made an ultra orthodox religious 
paper spoke of this great and Christ-like man as 'that 
infidel 'Procter.' Is this not an instance of overcharge 
for freedom among the free?"^ 
Says the Hebrew poet: 

"O, sing unto the Lord a new song; 
Sing unto the Lord, all the earth. 
Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice." 

The fact remains, and increasingly brightening by the 
passing years, that Alexander Campbell was not counted 
a heretic because he zvas such, but because he lifted to 
the world a new song. "An old song," says Prof. Mc- 
Fadyen, "can alw^ays count upon a welcome, formal if 
not hearty. But a new song! Few have the courage 
to raise it, and many and loud and discordant are the 
voices that strive to drown it out."^ 

A common fate has hovered over not a few of these 
singers of new songs. There came once to earth the 
sweetest singer the world ever heard. His song breathed 
the melody of the Infinite Father in his wonderful love 
and compassion for men. But it was a new song! And 
men turned back to their cold, heartless, rigid, mechanical 
law, saying, "Let us have no more of this love-song^— ^ 
crucify him ! crucify him !" So they crucified the Son 
of God ! But the song died not ! 

Stephen to his age raised anew the song. But the cry 

1 The Christian Century, Nov. 29, '06. 2 The Divine Pursuit, p. 99. 

—315— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

rang high, "Away with him !" As they stoned away his 
life, his face shone with the radiance of an angel's^-^ 
prophetic of the fact that truth never dies. 

Paul, too, was torn from the cherished scenes of his 
labors, by these destroyers of new songs, and thrust 
within the Roman prison, dying a martyr to the song of 
truth. But the song lived on! These are but gleams 
from the crowded pages of history. These are but a few 
of the love-chapters of sacrifice. Rivers of blood have 
flowed from these singers of new songs. History gives 
us not one Calvary, but many Calvaries. Look to the 
record. By the Inquisition alone, from 1481 to 1808, 
340,000 persons were punished, and out of these 32,000 
burnt ! 

Still such sacrifice is not without its value to truth. 
Says Draper: ^"The death of Servetus was not without 
advantage to the world. * "^ * Men asked, with 
amazement and indignation, if the atrocities of the In- 
quisition were again to be revived. On all sides they 
began to inquire how far it is lawful to inflict punish- 
ment of death for difference of opinion. It opened their 
eyes to the fact that, after aU they had done, the state of 
civilization in which they were living was still char- 
acterized by its intolerance. * * * 

'Xet it also be remembered that, considering that 
worthlessness of the body of man, and that, at the best, 
it is at last food for the worm, considering the infinite 
value of his immortal soul, for the redemption of which 

1 The Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II, pp. 189, 226. 

—316— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the agony and death of the Son of God were not too 
great a price to pay — indignities offered to the body are 
less wicked than indignities offered to the soul. It would 
be well for him who comes forward as an accuser of 
Mexico and Peru in their sin to dispose of the fact that 
at that period the entire authority of Europe was di- 
rected to the perversion, and even total repression of 
thought — to an enslaving of the mind, and making that 
noblest creation of heaven a worthless machine. To 
taste of human flesh is less criminal, in the eye of God, 
than to stifle human thought." 

What a record ! Who shall say that the suffering God 
is not still upon the earth ! Who shall declare that his 
love is not made manifest ! What a host of noble com- 
rades, fellowshiping in the Divine agonies, have gone to 
the Inquisition, to the stake, or to the loss of their good 
name, because they claimed the right to think and pos- 
sessed that rare faculty of making their ideas walk out 
alive among the children of men ! Luther, Cranmer, 
Cromwell, Galileo, Bruno, Darwin, Spencer, Campbell, 
and thousands of others, no less earnest if not so re- 
nowned. These, the singers of new songs ! These, 
damned by their own generation! 

Yet the sacrifice has its compensation. Who, in the 
face of Truth, glorious, blood-bought Truth, would 
raise a hand to stay the tide, would environ themselves 
in error rather than to see Truth come even at such 
precious cost? There is a pain that is divine. There is 
a death that is immortal. These truth-bringers have im- 

—317— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

mortalized themselves. They have garnered truth divine. 
They have incarnated divine love. By their cowardice 
the scarlet-thread which runs through all creative-love 
has not been broken. They have been true to the uni- 
versal law. They have fulfilled their task by serving God 
and truth. They can say, "It is finished," though com- 
pelled to say it from the cross. Their effort the next 
generation will acknowledge. For it will, by these light- 
bearers, have been lifted up above the mists into the 
regions of clearer sight. The world grows on apace. 
While the Kingdom of God rolls into it. The great uni- 
versal law stands anew revealed by each life yielded in 
the fight for truth. And again the world learns the 
blood-taught lesson that all of truth, and love, and beauty, 
comes not by each remaining silent and inert in the 
mighty struggle of life, but by the way of the cross, by 
each strewing his pathway with the sacrifice of self. 
Then let the singers sing their songs till they have sung 
into this songless world the harmonies of the skies ! 

"There came a singer through the world, 

The world of grim to-day, 
The fire of life was on his lips 
And in his heart the May. 

He sang a golden song of love, 

Of truth and truth's desire. 
And flung a majesty of might 

From his alluring lyre. 

He came to where the cliques of song, 

Life's grim Sanhedrim dwelt; 
They hated him because of all 

The truth he sang and felt. 
—318— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

They hated him and cried him down, 

Because they saw in him 
The lark in heaven, sweet and clear, 

That made their singing dim. 

They slew him with their evil tongues, 

Their artful, false disdain, 
And life lost all that joy and hope 

That should have been its gain. 

They drove him from the doors of hope, 

The gates of human fame. 
Until in dusk of evil spite 

He died without a name. 

His melody went fading out, 

Till under heaven's bars 
His mighty music sobbed and sank. 

And melted to the stars. 

Then in his place they set them up 

False gods of tinsel show, 
Poor helot, soulless, mumming mock, 

Of mighty long ago. 

And built them temples born of art, 

Upon an evil time, 
When gold and power and pelf were prized, 

And rhyme was only rhyme. 

And starved the yearning sons of God 

Of beauty, love and truth, 
And gave them stones who asked for bread, 

In dread and shameless ruth. 

How long, O Life, this mighty ill, 

This reign of hate? How long 
Permit to dree their evil weird, 

Earth's murderers of song?" 
—(The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell.) 



—319- 



CHAPTER Vra. 
The OutIook~"What of the Nights 



There is not one dark cloud, not one dark speck, in all the 
heavens of Christian hope. Everything seen in its wide 
dominions, in the unbounded prospect yet before us, is bright, 
cheering, animating, transporting. — Alexander Campbell. 

Not unto endless dark do we go down. 

Though all the wisdom of wide earth said, "Yea," 
Yet my fond heart would throb eternal "Nay;" 

Night, prophet of morning, wears her starry crown. 

And jewels with hope her murkiest shades that frown. 
Death's doubt is kerneled in each prayer we pray; 
Eternity but night in some vast day 

Of God's far-off red flame of love's renown. 

Not unto endless dark. We may not know 
The distant deeps to which our hoping go, 

The tidal shores where ebbs our fleeting breath; 
But over ill and dread and doubt's fell dart. 
Sweet hope, eternal, holds the human heart. 

And love laughs down the desolate dusks of death. 

— (The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell.) 

If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any 
man or woman of my cure, I shall feel that I have worked with 
God. He is in no haste; and if I do what I may in earnest, I 
need not mourn if I work no great work on the earth. Let 
God make His sunsets; I will mottle my little fading cloud. To 
help the growth of a thought that struggles towards the light; 
to brush with gentle hand the earth-stain from the white of one 
snowdrop — such be my ambition. So shall I scale the rocks in 
front, not leave my name carved upon those behind me. — 
George MacDonald. 



-322- 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE OUTLOOK— "WHAT OF THE NIGHT?" 

We have been surveying a man whose greatest original 
contribution to the world is undoubtedly himself. We 
have listened to his controlling ideas which he, with 
strong voice, lifted to his age. If at times we found him 
holding to the old terms in his age contact, we found him 
constantly putting the new meaning into these terms. 
We may justly think of him as Herrmann thinks of 
Luther : ^"It was one of the marks of his significance as 
a reformer that he clothed the new thought in the forms 
of the old, and so bequeathed it as a hidden germ to 
those generations which should only wean themselves by 
long mental exercise from the forms of thought employed 
by the ancient church." We have found him with a 
message both for his own age and a message for all 
time. He was intensely modern. 

The present is born out of the past. That does not 
mean that the present shall live in the past. The future 
grows out of the present, not the past. The uniqueness 
of the inovement inaugurated by Alexander Campbell 
and his coagitators is that their followers do not follow 
them. Mr. Campbell was no dogmatist. He announced 
principles to be developed. He would have no one 

1 Communion with God, p. 150. 

—323— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Libert'^. 

slavishly follow him. If he felt himself to be striking 
out new paths in his return to the Christ he did not de- 
sire that his successors should keep to his beaten paths; 
but should anew go back to the Christ, each individual 
for himself, and there learn the way of truth and duty 
from the Great Teacher. One of his frequent recogni- 
tions is not only that the change of time outwears all ver- 
bal expression, but that that same time would overtake 
his own theological exposition, rendering it old, so that 
it, too, would pass away to give place to the new. There- 
fore he would not have his admirers literally follow or 
think his thoughts after him. Rather would he have them 
comprehend the significance of his life and work, catch 
his spirit, and turn to the fulfillment of their task, in 
the age, and under the conditions of the times, and with 
the means of the day in which they live. We cannot 
think, then, of the movement pleaded by him, as a stereo- 
typed affair debarring further change and progress, nor 
as a closed shell into which no more light might enter. 
We are forced to think of it as a movement. Some- 
thing moving onward and upward. 'Progress, develop- 
ment, perfection — these are the ideas that characterized 
the movement? 

What is the outlook f Where one stands, the point of 
observation will determine one's view of the situation. 
The child of time, with eyes closed to progress, with 
mind incredulous of the power of truth to win, and heart 
unresponsive to the vast significance of the movements 
of the universe, will cry 'tis dark, 'tis night ! It will be 

—324— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

such a view of the world as the man got behind the 
stump. If one is viewing things from the standpoint of 
the eternal order a different view will obtain. 

Some have felt that the outlook for the brotherhood of 
Disciples is dark. Shall we allow this to prove true? 
Shall we prove to the world through our failure that 
liberty of thought must be clasped in creed? Or shall 
we not rather be an example to the world that the right 
to think grows strong and mighty in freedom? This is 
the question. Charles Alexander Young presents an im- 
portant consideration which is in perfect harmony with 
Mr. Campbell's own thought and spirit :^ 

"The next great step in the progress of the church 
toward religious liberty is marked — and this is the con- 
tribution of Thomas Campbell — by the distinction be- 
tween the personal faith of the believer and the theological 
faith of the creeds. With the breaking of the Papal 
tyranny there ensued a theological tyranny, which has 
ruled in the Protestant church through its creeds to the 
twentieth century. Every new assertion of Christian 
liberty has resulted in a new tyranny. Luther exercised 
the greatest liberty of thought personally, but it was lost 
to his followers. Calvin exercised freedom in the pur- 
suit and acceptance of new truth, but it departed from 
those who followed him. Thomas Campbell exercised 
the greatest possible liberty, and would be bound only 
where the Scriptures bound him; but is it any surprise 
that there has been less liberty among his followers? 

1 Hist. Doc, p. 42f. 

—325— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

Where Luther stopped growing, there Christian thought 
and life hardened into a fixed form. That which Luther 
was free to think in his Hfetime, the next generation was 
obHged to think, as a condition of fellowship in the 
Lutheran Church. There is danger that where Thomas 
and Alexander Campbell arrived in their movement to 
restore primitive Christianity, there those who gather 
around them shall stop. The principle of liberty, the 
right to grow with the growth of truth, needs perpetual 
emphasis and incessant utterance. Back to this principle 
has gone every great soul for fresh inspiration and a new 
starting point in the ascent toward perfect truth as it is in 
Jesus Christ. Liberty of thought, liberty of opinion, is 
utterly opposed to authority in opinion. To grant liberty 
of opinion, liberty in the pursuit of truth, yet to fix be- 
forehand the opinion at which one must arrive, is a de- 
nial of liberty. 

"This principle seems most impossible of application 
in great transition periods, such as the present. The 
opinions of the last generation of teachers, to which the 
Campbells belonged, were fixed and definite. They set- 
tled the question as to what were mere opinions and 
what essentials of the faith. To-day there is another set 
of opinions which has taken their place. The task is 
laid upon this generation anew to settle the relationship 
of these opinions to the old, and to the essentials of the 
faith. The inevitable condition has arrived in which some 
opinions are pronounced true, others erroneous. It seems 
the most difficult thing imaginable for those who think 

—326— 



'Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

the new opinions erroneous, not to go on to judge those 
opinions dangerous to the faith. Yes, they say, we 
acknowledge that they are mere opinions, but they are 
dangerous and ought not to be tolerated. This is an 
abridgment of liberty in non-essentials. 

"The conclusion of the whole matter is that there is 
just as much need of liberty in new opinion as in old 
opinion with which adjustment has been reached. In 
other words, openness to new truth, new ideas, new opin- 
ions, is just as essential to the unity of the church as 
liberty in old opinion. The refusal of the teachers of the 
church to be hospitable toward new truth has driven 
some of her best spirits from her, and obliged them to 
form new organizations for fellowship. The church of 
the very next generation has frequently welcomed truth 
that was rejected by the preceding. There are new 
truths being uttered to-day, which, though denied a place 
in the body of Christian truth by the church of to-day, 
will become a part of it to-morrow. There are new 
sects arising every year and building upon rejected truth 
— truth for which the existing churches have found no 
place." 

This crystallization is just what we found Mr. Camp- 
bell protesting against. It is true, from the very nature 
of things, it has ever been so, that there is always a fol- 
lowing of any good which fails to come up to its best 
measurements. It is true, it is lamentable that it is true, 
that there are within all brotherhoods of men some who 
fail in coming up to its sublimest heights. Selfishness, 

—327— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian IJberty. 

jealousy, superstition, ignorance, willfulness, bigotry — 
these go not out but by prayer and fasting . Yet who 
shall say that it is dark — hopelessly dark? Many who 
have used Mr. Campbell's name as authority, quoted his 
word, and sworn by him, do not yet know him. What is 
needed to-day is a good, wholesome acquaintance with 
the genius of the man who became the life and inspira- 
tion of this movement. When men once get under the 
sarching light of his acquaintance the darkness will be- 
gin to flee away and they shall behold the shining hills 
of day. No, 'tis not night! 'Tis morning!! *Tis 
glorious day!!! 

This may not seem true from the reader's point of view. 
As the darkey said : "It all 'pends on which side yer on." 
But when I turn to the great men of our movement I 
find the day growing wonderfully light about me. Here 
IS where the little insignificant thoughts and gossips fall 
away to make room for strong, tall, sun-crowned per- 
sonalities. The significance and promise of our move- 
ment to-day lies in these men — thinking, feeling, willing, 
living men. Men who have in their association with Mr. 
Campbell not tried to copy him nor to stop the develop- 
ment of his splendid work by fixing it, but have, with 
open minds and responding hearts, caught his vision, 
and are saying to this generation, "Come up higher." 
No, it is not night when there is such a host of fine 
spirits who, unwilling for the movement to crystallize 
about our leaders, are standing out boldly for truth, lib- 
erty and progress. 

—328— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

It is not night when our institutions of learning are, 
as they are, opening up the treasures of wisdom to the 
thousands of bright, capable young men and women of 
our land, and training them not only to express them- 
selves in harmony with the noblest that there is in God 
and man, but fitting them to face unflinchingly the prob- 
lems of their time, and heroically grapple with them. 

Of course, all this effort toward progress and perfec- 
tion does not come silently, sweetly and serenely. This 
is not always the way of such. Often times it seems as 
if hell were let loose on earth. But this is not the case. 
This is only the way the Kingdom of God has of com- 
ing to earth. It was the same in Jesus' day. We have 
found Mr. Campbell wrestling with the same law of de- 
velopment. One should not grow restless and disheart- 
ened if progress often seems harsh and runs not by 
straight paths. Such is but the method of God. This 
fluttering we often hear making the air grow dizzy about 
one is only the action of the wings getting adjusted for 
higher flights. That life may enjoy new and larger 
worlds there must be the breaking and snapping of cere- 
ments. These are but the birth-pangs— the tearing away 
from the narrow confines of the old existence with the 
consequent new adjustment to the larger life. This is 
as true of conscious man as of God's world of insects and 
flowers. So never mind the throes. Let the good work 
go on. 'Tis the sign of life, not death. 'Tis day ! 'Tis 
day ! ! The old earth groans, but the Kingdom of God 
rolls into it ! ! ! 

—329— 



^Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

The disciples, above all people, should be unwilling 
that any chasm should yaw^ between the church and the 
school. From the beginning they have stood, and will 
stand to the end, for the highest and best education and 
scholarship. Never willing that our plea should make its 
appeal solely to the emotions, profound thought has ever 
characterized it, and ever will. 

The past teaches us that success has attended the mes- 
sage of God's chosen ones in every age proportionate to 
their ability to adjust the truth to the age conditions. 
It is Important, then, that in the grasp of our message we 
recognize that there is a "to-day." We cannot afford to 
close our eyes In the full-orbed light of the present and 
go about saying, "All things are as they were from the 
beginning." Peter exhorted the people to be "estab- 
lished in the present truth." The confronting task of to- 
day is not getting a message, that we have — ^but finding 
points of contact for the application of truth which we 
already possess. Whether we believe in the present-day 
methods and ideas or not, we must know them. We 
must know that there is a "to-day." Not to feel its at- 
mosphere would be like a man who would make no pro- 
vision for the changing seasons. Every age has Its time- 
spirit, which H'egel defined as "the Spirit of God realizing 
Itself In the history of man." It might be thought of as 
the general atmosphere of the age. And whether we 
feel It or not, others do. 

As long as we look askance at the schools and col- 
leges, close our minds to development, and refuse to our 

—330— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

thought science, literature and art, we need not expect 
the intellectual world to give our plea any enthusiastic 
reception. 

If our message is the Christ, education needs Christ. 
The facts that education brings must be interpreted in 
the light of their eternal meaning. May it not be said 
of us, as was said of God's chosen ones of old, "My 
people perish for lack of knowledge." The dominant 
thought in philosophy to-day is the unification of all 
knowledge. Perhaps God has raised us up for this very 
purpose. 

He who fails to feel the magnitude of to-day must lag 
behind. Anna Robertson Brown Lindsay's "Warriors" 
came from the press in 1903. She tells us in the preface 
that she had begun to write the book five years before, 
and much of what she wrote which she had uttered as 
prophecy had been fulfilled when the book went to press. 
It is useless for us to talk about the "average man." 
Books of every description are flooding the land. The 
"average man" finds the newest in his fictions, magazines 
and papers. In fact, the "average man" is the "modern 
man." This age demands the truth of God stated in 
terms of to-day. Pentecost was unique in that every 
man heard the gospel in his own tongue. This age has 
a right to hear the gospel in the current language of the 
dav. 

Some have imagined that the new conceptions of 
things required a new message — a new revelation from 
God. No new message is needed. Fundamentally the 

—331— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

message is as ever — the love, justice, mercy and good- 
ness of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. It strikes us at 
a new angle. Our experience illuminates it. In the light 
of hitherto undreamed of conditions the fresh vision of 
the Christ seems to the impassioned soul like a new 
message. This is the nature of progressive revelation. 
We see only the part that our circumstance draws forth. 
God and Christ fathom it all. Jesus said : "I have many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." 
God brings to his chosen ones the present century. It is 
his preparation. The opportunity is ours. His message 
of salvation must be laid upon the heart of to-day's 
needs. It is a problem of adaptation that confronts us. 
Forward to Christ is our rally cry. Christ is not in 
Jerusalem more than he is in our midst. The call to-day 
is for a people who can bring to the world's need the 
message from God. Mr. Lecky, the historian, says : "It 
was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an 
ideal character, which, through all the changes of eighteen 
centuries, has filled the hearts of men with an impas- 
sioned love, and has shown itself capable of acting on 
all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions ; has not 
only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the highest 
incentive to its practice." Said Gladstone : "The longer 
I live the more I feel that Christianity does not consist in 
any particular system of church government, or in any 
creedal statement, but that Christianity is Christ." In 
"The Death of the Desert," Browning declares : 

"I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
Accepted by the reason solves for thee 
All questions in the world and out of it.'* 
—332— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty, 

Our message in its appeal is manifold. Social condi- 
tions need Jesus Christ. We can gain nothing and may 
lose all by feeling bitter toward the world because it 
seems often to rival the church, has a social conscience, 
a Bible — in its code of ethics, an enthusiasm for human- 
ity, and a feeling for brotherhood. These things are indic- 
ative of enlightenment, progress and human need. Upon 
this common ground we find our approach in bringing to 
society the love which Jesus taught the world, the only 
force which will cement and regenerate humanity. In its 
desire for brotherhood we may enjoin its natural coun- 
terpart and foundation — God's Fatherhood. The one is 
unpractical and impossible without the other. We need 
feel no alarm to learn that the Buddhists, Hindoos, Brah- 
mins and Mohammedans have their sacred books with 
beautiful and moral sentiments, but take courage and 
thank God that our message has expanded from a plea 
to the denominations to a message to nations. We have 
a Christ of whom we need have no fear that he will suf- 
fer in comparison. As we would have them do by us, we 
should recognize all the good in their religions with a 
feeling of certainty that since they have good they will 
learn to know the highest good. This is our point of con- 
tact. The ethnic religions have much that is true and 
pure, but they lack Christ. It requires but a people fully 
possessed by the spirit of Christ to make the Orient re- 
flect the "Light of the World." 

Commensurate with the world's great physical changes 
have been the mighty changes in the political and indus- 

—333— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

trial world which have brought to the surface feelings of 
discontent among workingmen. These cries of anguish 
from the burden bearers are prefaced with aspirations, 
longings and hopes for future betterment which are pow- 
erful in determination. There has been a turning from 
the individual to the society. The individual is almost 
in the mass. The solidarity of the human race is painted 
in most glowing colors, and the idea of brotherhood is 
given a new setting. Even Buddhists, Confucianists, Brah- 
mins and Hindoos urge the doctrine of brotherhood. 
This is the foundation stone of the democratic and social- 
istic movements of the day. 

The glory of our movement is the success with which 
our fathers brought the truth of God to bear upon the 
conditions of their day. The efficiency with which we 
bring divine truth to today's needs will determine our 
future glory. The fathers never purposed that we should 
be imitators of them nor interpret the mind of Christ 
through them. "Back to Christ" means beyond the fath- 
ers, and even beyond the apostles, to Christ himself. We 
must read them through Christ, not him through them. 

To be loyal to the fathers, as well as to Christ, is to 
imitate their heroic spirit in wrestling with the problems 
of our own day, to emulate their loyal feeling for the 
Master, to share their sacrifice and toil, and to realize in 
our own lives the mighty love that stirred within their 
souls; rather than to think what they thought and say 
what they said in the face of their conditions. 

Great and glorious are the tasks that confront the 

—334— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

church today. We may go forth sounding an evangel- 
istic note which will bring into harmony every discordant 
element. But to make this possible the church needs 
preparation from her own message. The church needs 
Christ. His love must animate and his Spirit possess her. 
'Tis not enough to accept Christ in doctrine. He is life. 
Submission is only passive. He must be employed and 
expressed. In this very world he brings us into life 
"more abundant." His Kingdom unfolding itself in a 
thousand ways in the life all about us, must impassion, 
inspire and thrill the whole church of God. Not the in- 
fidels without the Church are impeding her progress and 
delaying the coming Kingdom, but those within who fail 
to lay hold — in thought, imagination and faith — of God 
in his eternal purpose — those who fail to go forth with 
her message of the Christ with an awakened conscious- 
ness of all things both in heaven and earth. The "Chris- 
tian Evangelist" places the situation before us thus : 

"Never was the church, in any age, confronted with 
greater tasks than the Church of today. These tasks may 
be broadly stated as the evangelization of the heathen 
world and the Christianization of the civilization of pro- 
fessedly Christian lands. This involves the Christianiza- 
tion of our business, of our politics, of our laws and insti- 
tutions, of our educational processes, of our system of 
preventing crime and of punishing the criminals, and all 
that goes to make up the private and public life of a 
people. These tasks, in which the Church must at least 
lead if they are ever to be accomplished, require at least 

—335— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

two things on the part of the Church, namely, a deeper 
spiritual life which shall bring it into closer fellowship 
with God, and the healing of its divisions, so as to pre- 
sent a united front against the forces of evil. The first 
of these is essential to the realization of the other. We 
can never have the unification of a divided Church until 
it gets a clear vision and a stronger grasp of spiritual 
realities, and rises out of the region of the carnal into a 
higher faith and a purer worship. And never can the 
Church achieve the victory over the world and accom- 
plish its sublime mission until it closes up its divided 
ranks." 

Dr. Willett truly says : "The progress made during the 
life of Mr, Campbell did not cease at his death, and that 
the highest loyalty to him and the truths he proclaimed 
does not consist in camping on the spot where he fell, but 
in pursuing the path of progress he followed through life. 
If this Reformation would escape the fate of preceding 
movements, it must avoid their mistake of crystallizing 
about the positions which their leaders last occupied and 
failing to advance as those leaders had done through life 
and would still have continued to do if alive. If this 
mistake should be committed by the Disciples nothing 
could save them from the fate that has overtaken sev- 
eral previous reformations."^ 

Dr. Garrison puts the matter forcibly:^ "We must go 
forward. We have not yet apprehended that for which 

1 The New Christian Quarterly, Jan., 1896, p. 96. 2 a Modern Plea for 
Ancient Truths, p. ISf . 

—336-^ 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

we were apprehended by Christ Jesus. Our religious 
movement has not attained its ideal — much less God's 
ideal. He has greater work for us to do than we have 
ever dreamed of, if we will only follow where Christ 
would lead us. He wants a continuous and progressive 
reformation that shall address itself to the condition and 
needs of each passing age. He wants no crystallization, 
but perpetual growth. All previous reformations have 
crystallized. Shall ours? Not if we are willing to be 
led of Christ." 

Coming to Mr, Campbell is like drawing near to any 
great personality. It is not so much his word that builds 
us up as what his word suggests to and evokes from us. 
That which really helps us is the great thinking, feeling, 
willing soul which the words seek, though always inade- 
quately, to interpret and express. It is the touch of soul 
with soul that enlarges us. It is the fellowship of life 
with life that cheers us. So it is not only in what Mr. 
Campbell said so clearly, systematically, and beautifully 
that comforts us, but, in what sometimes he left unsaid, 
in what he would say, in what he aspired and yearned, 
in "instincts immature," in "purposes unsure," in thoughts 
hardly expressed, in fancies not escaped. It is his great 
progressive soul, struggling within its narrow confines 
of flesh and environment, ever reaching out unto the In- 
finite, that impresses us. The inspiration that he grants 
us is not confined to terms, propositions, nor even ideas. 
We feel the atmosphere of the man. We even forget the 
man as we are caught up into his glorious task of life. 
(22) —337— 



Alexander Campbell and Christian Liberty. 

We, too, become absorbed as we share with him the suf- 
ferings and joys incident upon such strenuous pressing 
toward the Goal. We even feel that this splendid task 
has become our task. Life becomes sweeter and more 
meaningful, with such a friend, and as the noblest in us 
longs for expression, we feel ourselves rising to the 
heights with him. Yes, the real incentive of such asso- 
ciation is that the outward man falls into the background 
— his form, his manners, his word — and we find ourselves 
face to face with God. 

Alexander Campbell passed through life earnestly, sin- 
cerely, gracefully. His passing to God was beautiful and 
victorious, while the immortal truths of his religion live 
and stir today in thousands of hearts from whom they 
evoke the best and noblest expression. 

Therefore, he, having passed into Immortality^ is still 
speaking upon the earth. So 'tis not night, but glorious 
day ! In such souls, touched and transformed by the Di- 
vine passion, "mercy and truth are met together, right- 
eousness and peace have kissed each other." As we pen 
these closing words, nestled here among the rugged Rock- 
ies, fit emblem of Truth, those giant forms lift themselves 
from earth to heaven; snow-crowned as t^hey are, seem- 
ing cold in their awful grandeur, yet withal sun-kissed 
and overarched with sky of blue. We are impressed that 
God and man are in league; that heaven and earth are 
in union; that "Truth springeth out of the earth and 
righteousness hath looked down from heaven." 

—338— 



Bibliography. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The Works of Alexander Campbell (Christian Publishing Co.) 

Abbreviations. 

Popular Lectures and Addresses Add. 

Campbell on Baptism Bapt. 

The Christian Baptist C. B. 

The Christian System Ch. Sys. 

Debate on the Roman Catholic Religion D. on R. C. R. 

Lectures on the Pentateuch Lect. on Pent. 

Evidences of Christianity Evi. 

Living Oracles Liv. Or. 

Millennial Harbinger Mil Har. 

Other Works Referred To. 

Historical Documents Advocating Christian Union — Young. 
(Christian Century Company.) 

The Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples — 
Gates. (Christian Century Company.) 

A Modern Plea for Ancient Truths — Garrison. (Christian Pub- 
lishing Company.) 

Alexander Campbell's Theology — W. E. Garrison. (Christian 
Publishing Company. ) 

The Plea of the Disciples of Christ — Moore. (Christian Cen- 
tury Co.) 

The Rise of the Current Reformation — Van Kirk. (Christian 
Publishing Company.) 

Higher Criticism (Tract) — Garrison. (Christian Publishing 
Company.) 

The Christian-Evangelist. (Christian Publishing Company, St. 
Louis, Mo.) 

—341— 



Bibliography. 

The Christian Century. (Chicago, III.) 

The Centennial Campfire — Laura Gerould Craig. (C. W. B. M., 
■Indianapolis, Ind.) 

Faith and Rationalism — Fisher. (Scribners.) 

Ten Epochs of Church History— (The Apostolic Age — Bartlet). 
(Scribners.) 

Life and Religion — Miiller. (Doubleday, Page & Co.) 

Reconstructions in Theology — King. (The Macmillan Co.) 

The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life — King. (Mac- 
millan Co.) 

Theology and the Social Consciousness — King. (The Macmil- 
lan Co.) 

Personal and Ideal Elements in Education — King. (The Mac- 
millan Co.) 

The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl — Swing. (Longmans.) 

Communion with God — Herrmann. (Putnam.) 

Christian Theology in Outline — Brown. (Scribners.) 

The Finality of the Christian Religion — Foster. (University of 
Chicago Press.) 

What Is Christianity? — Harnack. (Putnam.) 

A History of New England Theology — Foster. (University of 
Chicago Press.) 

Cambridge Theological Essays. (Macmillan Co.) 

The English Reformation and Puritanism — Hulbert. (Uni- 
versity of Chicago Press.) 

Hagenbach's History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nine- 
teenth Centuries — ^Vol. II — Hurst. (Scribners.) 

The Philosophy of Religion — Lotze. (Macmillan Co.) 

Microcosmus — Lotze. (Scribners.) 

A History of Philosophy — Windelband. (The Macmillan Co.) 

The Place of Christ in Modern Theology — Fairbairn. (Scrib- 
ners. ) 

The Canon of the Old Testament — Ryle. (Macmillan Co.) 

—342— 



Bibliography. 

The Old Testament in the Jewish Church— W. Robertson Smith. 

{Macmillan Co.) 
The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament — Kent. 

{Scrihncrs.) 
The New Appreciation of the Bible — Selleck. {University of 

Chicago Press.) 
A Young Man's Religion and His Father's Faith — Waters. 

(Thomas Y. Crowell &• Co.) 
The Fortune of the Republic — Hillis. {Revell.) 
The Heart of the Gospel — Campbell. (Revell.) 
Pragmatism — William James. (Longmans, Green & Co.) 
Messages of the Masters — Amory H. Bradford. (T. Y. Crowell 

& Co.) 
The Evolution of Christianity — Lyman Abbott. (Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co.) 
Religions of the World — Grant. (Randolph & Co.) 
The Intellectual Development of Europe — Vol. HI — Draper. 

(Harpers.) 
The Front Line of the Sunday School Movement — Peloubet. 

(W. A. Wilde Co.) 
The Bible: Its Origin and Nature — Marcus Dods. (Scrihners.) 
History of Interpretation — Farrar. 

Bible Criticism and the Average Man — Johnston. (Revell.) 
Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism — Smyth. (Scrih- 
ners.) 
The Idea of God— Fiske. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
The Divine Pursuit — McFadyen. (Revell.) 
The Story of the Psalms — Van Dyke. (Scribners.) 
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell. (William Briggs, 

Toronto.) 
Essays — Mazzini. (Walter Scott, London.) 
Democratic Vistas and Other Papers — Whitman. (Walter Scott, 

London.) 
The Teaching of Jesus — Vol. I — Wendt. (Scribners.) 

—343— 



Bibliography. 

Text-Book in the History of Education — Monroe. {Macmill- 

lan Co.) 
History of Christian Doctrine — Fisher. (Scribners.) 
The Ascent of Man — Drummond. (James Pott & Co.) 
The New Era — Strong. (Baker &• Taylor Co.) 
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels — Hastings. (Scribners.) 
The Lew Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. 
The JNew {Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Eeligious Knowledge. 

(Punk & W agnails Co.) 

What Is Religion ?—Pritchett. {Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 

Temple Bible — An Introduction to the Study of the Scripture — 
Boyd Carpenter. (/. B. Lippincott Co.) 

Browning's Complete Poetical Works. (Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co.) 

Outline of the Doctrinal Development of the Western Church 
(Based on the Dogmengeschichte of Friedrich Loofs) — Al- 
bert Temple Swing. (Oberlin, Ohio.) 

Movements of Religious Thought in Britain During the Nine- 
teenth Century — Tulloch. (Scribners.) 

Robertson's Sermons. (Harpers & Bros.) 



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